We model larviciding of mosquitoes taking into account the evolution of resistance to the larvicides, the evolutionary costs of resistance and the implications for malaria control. There is evidence that resistance comes with various costs, one of which is reduced adult longevity for resistant mutants. The mosquito adult lifespan is one of the most crucial parameters in malaria transmission due to a long developmental time for the malaria parasite in the insect. A possible malaria control strategy is therefore to shorten this adult lifespan by larviciding with a potent larvicide to which mosquitoes become resistant. This novel strategy is studied using a mathematical model for the wild type and resistant mutants and by incorporating the malaria disease dynamics using an SEI type model with standard incidence that incorporates the latency period of the parasite in wild-type and resistant mosquitoes. We consider the linear stability of the malaria-free equilibrium in which the resistant strain is dominant and derive a condition for the global eradication of malaria. Numerical simulations are presented, which offer further insights. The parameter to which the analysis is most sensitive is the per-capita death rate of resistant adult mosquitoes. Increasing this parameter dramatically reduces the basic reproduction number R0. However, increasing it too much causes the wild type to outcompete the resistant mutants, and the control strategy fails. Exploitation of costs of resistance to larvicides thus offers a possible malaria control measure if the larvicide is sufficiently potent and costs of resistance are neither too great nor too small.

We study an initial-boundary value problem for a coupled Cahn–Hilliard–Hele–Shaw system that models tumour growth. For large initial data with finite energy, we prove global (local resp.) existence, uniqueness, higher order spatial regularity and the Gevrey spatial regularity of strong solutions to the initial-boundary value problem in two dimensions (three dimensions resp.). Asymptotically in time, we show that the solution converges to a constant state exponentially fast as time tends to infinity under certain assumptions.

Topology of two-dimensional flow associated with degenerate dividing streamline on a free surface is analysed from a topological point of view by considering the critical point concept. Streamline patterns and their bifurcations in the vicinity of a free surface were investigated by Brøns (Brøns, M. (1994) Topological fluid dynamics of interfacial flows. Phys. Fluids6, 2730–2736). Brøns's work is extended to the case of a stream function, including the fourth-order normal form approach. From this, a complete description of bifurcations which can occur in two-dimensional incompressible flow is obtained up to codimension three. The theory is applied to the patterns found numerically in a roll coater.

In this paper we consider the problem of reconstructing sources in a homogeneous viscoelastic medium from wavefield measurements. We first present a modified time-reversal imaging algorithm based on a weighted Helmholtz decomposition and justify mathematically that it provides a better approximation than by simply time reversing the displacement field, where artifacts appear due to the coupling between the pressure and shear waves. Then we investigate the source inverse problem in an elastic attenuating medium. We provide a regularized time-reversal imaging which corrects the attenuation effect at the first order. The results of this paper yield the fundamental tools for solving imaging problems in elastic media using cross-correlation techniques.

Interpolation of spatial data is a very general mathematical problem with various applications. In geostatistics, it is assumed that the underlying structure of the data is a stochastic process which leads to an interpolation procedure known as kriging. This method is mathematically equivalent to kernel interpolation, a method used in numerical analysis for the same problem, but derived under completely different modelling assumptions. In this paper we present the two approaches and discuss their modelling assumptions, notions of optimality and different concepts to quantify the interpolation accuracy. Their relation is much closer than has been appreciated so far, and even results on convergence rates of kernel interpolants can be translated to the geostatistical framework. We sketch different answers obtained in the two fields concerning the issue of kernel misspecification, present some methods for kernel selection and discuss the scope of these methods with a data example from the computer experiments literature.

We present the formal geometric derivation of a non-equilibrium growth model that takes the form of a parabolic partial differential equation. Subsequently, we study its stationary radial solutions by means of variational techniques. Our results depend on the size of a parameter that plays the role of the strength of forcing. For small forcing we prove the existence and multiplicity of solutions to the elliptic problem. We discuss our results in the context of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.

In one space dimension, we consider source-type (self-similar) solutions to the thin-film equation with vanishing slope at the edge of their support (zero contact-angle condition) in the range of mobility exponents $n\in\left(\frac 3 2,3\right)$. This range contains the physically relevant case n=2 (Navier slip). The existence and (up to a spatial scaling) uniqueness of these solutions has been established in [3] (Bernis, F., Peletier, L. A. & Williams, S. M. (1992) Source type solutions of a fourth-order nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation. Nonlinear Anal. 18, 217–234). It is also shown there that the leading-order expansion near the edge of the support coincides with that of a travelling-wave solution. In this paper we substantially sharpen this result, proving that the higher order correction is analytic with respect to two variables: the first one is just the spatial variable whereas the second one is a (generically irrational, in particular for n=2) power of it, which naturally emerges from a linearisation of the operator around the travelling-wave solution. This result shows that – as opposed to the case of n=1 (Darcy) or to the case of the porous medium equation (the second-order analogue of the thin-film equation) – in this range of mobility exponents, source-type solutions are not smooth at the edge of their support even when the behaviour of the travelling wave is factored off. We expect the same singular behaviour for a generic solution to the thin-film equation near its moving contact line. As a consequence, we expect a (short-time or small-data) well-posedness theory – of which this paper is a natural prerequisite – to be more involved than in the case n=1.

We consider a nonlinear, strongly coupled, parabolic system arising in the modelling of burglary in residential areas. This model appeared in Pitcher (Eur. J. Appl. Math., 2010, Vol. 21, pp. 401–419), as a more realistic version of the Short et al. (Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci., 2008, Vol. 18, pp. 1249–1267) model. The system under consideration is of chemotaxis-type and involves a logarithmic sensitivity function and specific interaction and relaxation terms. Under suitable assumptions on the data of the problem, we give a rigorous proof of the existence of a global and bounded, classical solution, thereby solving a problem left open in previous work on this model. Our proofs are based on the construction of approximate entropies and on the use of various functional inequalities. We also provide explicit numerical conditions for global existence when the domain is a square, including concrete cases involving values of the parameters which are expected to be physically relevant.

We explore the effect of disjoining pressure on a thin film equation in the presence of a non-uniform body force, motivated by a model describing the reverse draining of a magnetic film. To this end, we use a combination of numerical investigations and analytical considerations. The disjoining pressure has a regularizing influence on the evolution of the system and appears to select a single steady-state solution for fixed height boundary conditions; this is in contrast with the existence of a continuum of locally attracting solutions that exist in the absence of disjoining pressure for the same boundary conditions. We numerically implement matched asymptotic expansions to construct equilibrium solutions and also investigate how they behave as the disjoining pressure is sent to zero. Finally, we consider the effect of the competition between forcing and disjoining pressure on the coarsening dynamics of the thin film for fixed contact angle boundary conditions.

We study of a new type of multi-bump blowup solutions of the Ginzburg–Landau equation. Multi-bump blowup solutions have previously been found in numeric simulations, asymptotic analysis and were proved to exist via geometric construction. In the geometric construction of the solutions, the existence of two types of multi-bump solutions was shown. One type is exponentially small at ξ=0, and the other type of solutions is algebraically small at ξ=0. So far, the first type of solutions were studied asymptotically. Here, we analyse the solutions which are algebraically small at ξ=0 by using asymptotic methods. This construction is essentially different from the existing one, and ideas are obtained from the geometric construction. Hence, this is a good example of where both asymptotic analysis and geometric methods are needed for the overall picture.

After we derive the Serre system of equations of water wave theory from a generalized variational principle, we present some of its structural properties. We also propose a robust and accurate finite volume scheme to solve these equations in one horizontal dimension. The numerical discretization is validated by comparisons with analytical and experimental data or other numerical solutions obtained by a highly accurate pseudo-spectral method.

In this paper, we use formal asymptotic arguments to understand the stability properties of equivariant solutions to the Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert model for ferromagnets. We also analyse both the harmonic map heatflow and Schrödinger map flow limit cases. All asymptotic results are verified by detailed numerical experiments, as well as a robust topological argument. The key result of this paper is that blowup solutions to these problems are co-dimension one and hence both unstable and non-generic.

We consider an optimal control problem based on the evolutionary game theory model introduced by Short et al. (Short, M. B., Brantingham, P. J. & D'Orsogna, M. R. (2010) Cooperation and punishment in an adversarial game: How defectors pave the way to a peaceful society. Phys. Rev. E82(6), 066114.1–066114.7) to study societal attitudes in relation to committing and reporting crimes. Since in [26] (Short, M. B., Brantingham, P. J. & D'Orsogna, M. R. Cooperation and punishment in an adversarial game: How defectors pave the way to a peaceful society. Phys. Rev. E82(6), 066114.1–066114.7) it is shown that the presence of criminal informants leads to diminishing crime, in this paper we investigate the active recruitment of informants from the general population via external intervention, albeit at a cost to society. While higher recruitment levels may be the most beneficial in abating crime, these are also more expensive. We thus formulate our optimal control problem to account for finite resources, incurred costs and expected benefits, and determine the most favourable recruitment strategy under given constraints. We consider the cases of targeted and untargeted recruitment, and allow recruitment costs to depend on past cumulative payoffs within a given memory time-frame so that conversion of more successful individuals may be more costly than that of less successful ones. Our optimal control problem is expressed via three control functions subject to a system of delay differential equations, and is numerically solved, analysed and discussed under different settings and in different parameter regimes. We find that the optimal strategy can change drastically and abruptly as parameters and resource constraints vary, and that increased information on individual player strategies leads to only slightly decreased minimal costs.

In this paper a four-dimensional macroeconomic model of a small open economy, describing the development of income, capital stock, interest rate and money stock, which was constructed in [5] (Makovínyiová, K. & Zimka, R. (2009) On stability in generalized Schinasi's macroeconomic model under fixed exchange rates. Tatra Mt. Math. Publ. 43, 115–122), is analysed. Sufficient conditions for the existence of one pair of purely imaginary eigenvalues and two eigenvalues with negative real parts in the linear approximation matrix of the model are found. Formulae for the calculation of the bifurcation coefficients of the model are derived. A statement about the existence of limit cycles is made. A numerical example is given illustrating the results.

For the parabolic–elliptic Keller–Segel system in 2 it has been proved that if the initial mass is less than 8π/χ, a global solution exists, and in case the initial mass is larger than 8π/χ, blow-up happens. The case of several chemotactic species introduces an additional question: What is the analog for the critical mass obtained for the single species system? We find a threshold curve in the two species case that allows us to determine if the system is a blow-up or a global in time solution. No radial symmetry is assumed.