A minimal model for predator-prey interaction in a composite environment is presented and analysed. We first consider free migrations between two patches for both interacting populations, and then the particular cases where only one-directional migration is allowed and where only one of the two populations can migrate. Our findings indicate that in all cases the ecosystem can never disappear entirely, under the model assumptions. The predator-free equilibrium and the coexistence of all populations are found to be the only feasible stable equilibria. When there are only one-directional migrations, the abandoned patch cannot be repopulated. Other equilibria then arise, with only prey in the second patch, coexistence in the second patch, or prey in both patches but predators only in the second one. For the case of sedentary prey, with predator migration, the prey cannot thrive alone in either of the two environments. However, predators can survive in a prey-free patch due to their ability to migrate into the other patch, provided prey is present there. If only the prey can migrate, the predators may be eliminated from one patch or from both. In the first case, the patch where there are no predators acts as a refuge for the survival of the prey.

The hybrid variational model for restoration of texture images corrupted by blur and Gaussian noise we consider combines total variation regularisation and a fractional-order regularisation, and is solved by an alternating minimisation direction algorithm. Numerical experiments demonstrate the advantage of this model over the adaptive fractional-order variational model in image quality and computational time.

This article is devoted to the study of the finite element approximation for a nonlocal nonlinear parabolic problem. Using a linearised Crank-Nicolson Galerkin finite element method for a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation, we establish the convergence and error bound for the fully discrete scheme. Moreover, important results on exponential decay and vanishing of the solutions in finite time are presented. Finally, some numerical simulations are presented to illustrate our theoretical analysis.

We discuss an efficient preconditioner and iterative numerical method to solve large complex linear algebraic systems of the form (W + iT)u = c, where W and T are symmetric matrices, and at least one of them is nonsingular. When the real part W is dominantly stronger or weaker than the imaginary part T, we propose a block multiplicative (BM) preconditioner or its variant (VBM), respectively. The BM and VBM preconditioned iteration methods are shown to be parameter-free, in terms of eigenvalue distributions of the preconditioned matrix. Furthermore, when the relationship between W and T is obscure, we propose a new preconditioned BM method (PBM) to overcome this difficulty. Both convergent properties of these new iteration methods and spectral properties of the corresponding preconditioned matrices are discussed. The optimal value of iteration parameter for the PBM method is determined. Numerical experiments involving the Helmholtz equation and some other applications show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed preconditioners and corresponding iterative methods.

An infinite Bernoulli-Euler beam (representing the “combined rail” consisting of the rail and longitudinal sleeper) mounted on periodic flexible point supports (representing the railpads) has already proven to be a suitable mathematical model for the floating ladder track (FLT), to define its natural vibrations and its forced response due to a moving load. Adopting deliberately conservative parameters for the existing FLT design, we present further results for the response to a steadily (uniformly) moving load when the periodic supports are assumed to be elastic, and then introduce the mass and viscous damping of the periodic supports. Typical support damping significantly moderates the resulting steady deflexion at any load speed, and in particular substantially reduces the magnitude of the resonant response at the critical speed. The linear mathematical analysis is then extended to include the inertia of the load that otherwise moves uniformly along the beam, generating overstability at supercritical speeds – i.e. at load speeds notably above the critical speed predicted for the resonant response when the load inertia is neglected. Neither the resonance nor the overstability should prevent the safe implementation of the FLT design in modern high speed rail systems.

A two-layer non-hydrostatic numerical model is proposed to simulate the formation of undular bores by tsunami wave fission. These phenomena could not be produced by a hydrostatic model. Here, we derived a modified Shallow Water Equations with involving hydrodynamic pressure using two layer approach. Staggered finite volume method with predictor corrector step is applied to solve the equation numerically. Numerical dispersion relation is derived from our model to confirm the exact linear dispersion relation for dispersive waves. To illustrate the performance of our non-hydrostatic scheme in case of linear wave dispersion and non-linearity, four test cases of free surface flows are provided. The first test case is standing wave in a closed basin, which test the ability of the numerical scheme in simulating dispersive wave motion with the correct frequency. The second test case is the solitary wave propagation as the examination of owing balance between dispersion and nonlinearity. Regular wave propagation over a submerged bar test by Beji is simulated to show that our non-hydrostatic scheme described well the shoaling process as well as the linear dispersion compared with the experimental data. The last test case is the undular bore propagation.

Simplified models like the shallow water equations (SWE) are commonly adopted for describing a wide range of free surface flow problems, like flows in rivers, lakes, estuaries, or coastal areas. In the literature, numerical methods for the SWE are mostly mesh-based. However, this macroscopic approach is unable to accurately represent the complexity of flows near coastlines, where waves nearly break. This fact prompted the idea of coupling the mesh-based SWE model with a meshless particle method for solving the Euler equations. In a previous paper, a method to couple the staggered scheme SWE and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) Euler equations was developed and discussed. In this article, this coupled model is used for simulating solitary wave run-up on a sloping beach. The results show strong agreement with the experimental data of Synolakis. Simulations of wave overtopping over a seawall were also performed.

A quadratic optimal control problem governed by parabolic equations with integral constraints is considered. A fully discrete finite element scheme is constructed for the optimal control problem, with finite elements for the spatial but the backward Euler method for the time discretisation. Some superconvergence results of the control, the state and the adjoint state are proved. Some numerical examples are performed to confirm theoretical results.

We consider a theoretical model for the spread of avian influenza in a poultry population. An avian influenza epidemic model incorporating spatial spread as a diffusive process is discussed, where the infected individuals are restricted from moving to prevent spatial transmission but infection occurs when susceptible individuals come into contact with infected individuals or the virus is contracted from the contaminated environment (e.g. through water or food). The infection is assumed to spread radially and isotropically. After a stability and phase plane analysis of the equivalent system of ordinary differential equations, it is shown that an analytical solution can be obtained in the form of a travelling wave. We outline the methodology for finding such analytical solutions using a travelling wave coordinate when the wave is assumed to move at constant speed. Numerical simulations also produce the travelling wave solution, and a comparison is made with some predictions based on empirical data reported in the literature.

An exact self-similar solution is used to investigate current sheet formation at a magnetic neutral line in incompressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics. The collapse to a current sheet is modelled as a finite-time singularity in the solution for electric current density at the neutral line. We establish that a finite-time collapse to the current sheet can occur in Hall magnetohydrodynamics, and we find a criterion for the finite-time singularity in terms of the initial conditions. We derive an asymptotic solution for the singularity formation and a formula for the singularity formation time. The analytical results are illustrated by numerical solutions, and we also investigate an alternative similarity reduction. Finally, we generalise our solution to incorporate resistive, viscous and electron inertia terms.

We compare spectral and wavelet estimators of the response amplitude operator (RAO) of a linear system, with various input signals and added noise scenarios. The comparison is based on a model of a heaving buoy wave energy device (HBWED), which oscillates vertically as a single mode of vibration linear system. HBWEDs and other single degree of freedom wave energy devices such as oscillating wave surge convertors (OWSC) are currently deployed in the ocean, making such devices important systems to both model and analyse in some detail. The results of the comparison relate to any linear system. It was found that the wavelet estimator of the RAO offers no advantage over the spectral estimators if both input and response time series data are noise free and long time series are available. If there is noise on only the response time series, only the wavelet estimator or the spectral estimator that uses the cross-spectrum of the input and response signals in the numerator should be used. For the case of noise on only the input time series, only the spectral estimator that uses the cross-spectrum in the denominator gives a sensible estimate of the RAO. If both the input and response signals are corrupted with noise, a modification to both the input and response spectrum estimates can provide a good estimator of the RAO. A combination of wavelet and spectral methods is introduced as an alternative RAO estimator. The conclusions apply for autoregressive emulators of sea surface elevation, impulse, and pseudorandom binary sequences (PRBS) inputs. However, a wavelet estimator is needed in the special case of a chirp input where the signal has a continuously varying frequency.

In this article, we derive a new fourth-order finite difference formula based on off-step discretisation for the solution of two-dimensional nonlinear triharmonic partial differential equations on a 9-point compact stencil, where the values of u,(∂2u/∂n2) and (∂4u/∂n4) are prescribed on the boundary. We introduce new ways to handle the boundary conditions, so there is no need to discretise the boundary conditions involving the partial derivatives. The Laplacian and biharmonic of the solution are obtained as a by-product of our approach, and we only need to solve a system of three equations. The new method is directly applicable to singular problems, and we do not require any fictitious points for computation. We compare its advantages and implementation with existing basic iterative methods, and numerical examples are considered to verify its fourth-order convergence rate.

In this paper, we propose a new SSOR-like method with four parameters to solve the augmented system. And we analyze the convergence of the method and get the optimal convergence factor under suitable conditions. It is proved that the optimal convergence factor is the same as the GMPSD method [M.A. Louka and N.M. Missirlis, A comparison of the extrapolated successive overrelaxation and the preconditioned simultaneous displacement methods for augmented systems, Numer. Math. 131(2015) 517-540] with five parameters under the same assumption.

In this paper we consider new perturbation bounds analysis of a kind of generalized saddle point systems. We provide perturbation upper bounds for the solutions of generalized saddle point systems, which extend the corresponding results in [W.-W. Xu, W. Li, New perturbation analysis for generalized saddle point systems, Calcolo., 46(2009), pp. 25-36] to more general cases.

In this paper, we first construct a preconditioned two-parameter generalized Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting (PTGHSS) iteration method based on the two-parameter generalized Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting (TGHSS) iteration method for non-Hermitian positive definite linear systems. Then a class of PTGHSS-based iteration methods are proposed for solving weakly nonlinear systems based on separable property of the linear and nonlinear terms. The conditions for guaranteeing the local convergence are studied and the quasi-optimal iterative parameters are derived. Numerical experiments are implemented to show that the new methods are feasible and effective for large scale systems of weakly nonlinear systems.

Multivariate Markov chain models have previously been proposed in for studying dependent multiple categorical data sequences. For a given multivariate Markov chain model, an important problem is to study its joint stationary distribution. In this paper, we use two techniques to present some perturbation bounds for the joint stationary distribution vector of a multivariate Markov chain with s categorical sequences. Numerical examples demonstrate the stability of the model and the effectiveness of our perturbation bounds.

The signal transduction pathway is the important process of communication of the cells. It is the dynamical interaction between the ligand-receptor complexes and an inhibitor protein in second messenger synthesis. The signaling molecules are detected and bounded by receptors, typically G-Protein receptors, across the cell membrane and that in turns alerts intracellular molecules to stimulate a response or a desired consequence in the target cells. In this research, we consider a model of the signal transduction process consisting of a system of three differential equations which involve the dynamic interaction between an inhibitor protein and the ligand-receptor complexes in the second messenger synthesis. We will incorporate a delay τ in the time needed before the signal amplification process can take effect on the production of the ligand-receptor complex. We investigate persistence and stability of the system. It is shown that the system allows positive solutions and the positive equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable under suitable conditions on the system parameters.

We numerically study a thermal-diffusive model for smouldering combustion under microgravity with convective heat losses. In accordance with previous experimental observations, it is well known that porous materials burning against a gaseous oxidiser under microgravity exhibit various finger-like char patterns due to the destabilising effect of oxidiser transport. There is a close resemblance between the pattern-forming dynamics observed in the experiments with the mechanism of thermal-diffusive instability, similar to that occurring in low Lewis number premixtures. At large values of the Lewis number, the finger-like pattern coalesces and propagates as a stable front reminiscent of the pattern behaviour at large Péclet numbers in diffusion-limited systems. The significance of the order of the chemical kinetics for the coexistence of both upstream and downstream smoulder waves is also considered.

Based on a preconditioned shift-splitting of the (1,1)-block of non-Hermitian saddle-point matrix and the Uzawa iteration method, we establish a new Uzawa-type iteration method. The convergence properties of this iteration method are analyzed. In addition, based on this iteration method, a preconditioner is proposed. The spectral properties of the preconditioned saddle-point matrix are also analyzed. Numerical results are presented to verify the robustness and the efficiency of the new iteration method and the preconditioner.

We consider a Robin inverse problem associated with the Laplace equation, which is a severely ill-posed and nonlinear. We formulate the problem as a boundary integral equation, and introduce a functional of the Robin coefficient as a regularisation term. A conjugate gradient method is proposed for solving the consequent regularised nonlinear least squares problem. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.