This paper is concerned with a nonlocal reaction–diffusion system with double free boundaries and two time delays. The free boundary problem describes the evolution of faecally–orally transmitted diseases. We first show the well-posedness of global solution, and then establish the monotonicity and asymptotic property of basic reproduction number for the epidemic model without delays, which is defined by spectral radius of the next infection operator. By introducing the generalized principal eigenvalue defined in general domain, we obtain an upper bound of the limit value of basic reproduction number. We discuss the spreading and vanishing phenomena in terms of the basic production number. By employing the perturbed approximation method and monotone iteration method, we establish the existence, uniqueness and monotonicity of solution to semi-wave problem. When spreading occurs, we determine the asymptotic spreading speeds of free boundaries by constructing suitable upper and lower solutions from the semi-wave solutions. Moreover, spreading speeds for partially degenerate diffusion case are provided in a similar way.

A delayed reaction-diffusion system with free boundaries is investigated in this paper to understand how the bacteria spread spatially to larger area from the initial infected habitat. Under the assumptions that the nonlinearities are of monostable type and the initial values satisfy some compatible condition, we show that the free boundary problem is well-posed and discuss the long-time behaviour of solution (including spreading and vanishing) in terms of the spatial-temporal risk index. Furthermore, to determine the spreading speed of free boundaries when spreading occurs, we first study the distribution of roots of a transcendental equation containing a polynomial of degree four and then establish the existence and uniqueness of monotone solution to a delay-induced nonlocal semi-wave problem by employing the approximation method, lower-upper solutions technique and Schauder fixed point theorem. It is shown that time delays slow down the spreading of bacteria.

We extend previous weak well-posedness results obtained in Frigeri et al. (2017, Solvability, Regularity, and Optimal Control of Boundary Value Problems for PDEs, Vol. 22, Springer, Cham, pp. 217–254) concerning a non-local variant of a diffuse interface tumour model proposed by Hawkins-Daarud et al. (2012, Int. J. Numer. Method Biomed. Engng.28, 3–24). The model consists of a non-local Cahn–Hilliard equation with degenerate mobility and singular potential for the phase field variable, coupled to a reaction–diffusion equation for the concentration of a nutrient. We prove the existence of strong solutions to the model and establish some high-order continuous dependence estimates, even in the presence of concentration-dependent mobilities for the nutrient variable in two spatial dimensions. Then, we apply the new regularity results to study an inverse problem identifying the initial tumour distribution from measurements at the terminal time. Formulating the Tikhonov regularised inverse problem as a constrained minimisation problem, we establish the existence of minimisers and derive first-order necessary optimality conditions.

In this paper, we study the initial-boundary value problem of a repulsion Keller–Segel system with a logarithmic sensitivity modelling the reinforced random walk. By establishing an energy–dissipation identity, we prove the existence of classical solutions in two dimensions as well as existence of weak solutions in the three-dimensional setting. Moreover, it is shown that the weak solutions enjoy an eventual regularity property, i.e., it becomes regular after certain time T > 0. An exponential convergence rate towards the spatially homogeneous steady states is obtained as well. We adopt a new approach developed recently by the author to study the eventual regularity. The argument is based on observation of the exponential stability of constant solutions in scaling-invariant spaces together with certain dissipative property of the global solutions in the same spaces.

We study the existence of entropy solutions by assuming the right-hand side function f to be an integrable function for some elliptic nonlocal p-Laplacian type problems. Moreover, the existence of weak solutions for the corresponding parabolic cases is also established. The main aim of this paper is to provide some positive answers for the two questions proposed by Chipot and de Oliveira (Math. Ann., 2019, 375, 283-306).

This paper investigates regularity in Lorentz spaces for weak solutions of a class of divergence form quasi-linear parabolic equations with singular divergence-free drifts. In this class of equations, the principal terms are vector field functions that are measurable in ($x,t$)-variable, and nonlinearly dependent on both unknown solutions and their gradients. Interior, local boundary, and global regularity estimates in Lorentz spaces for gradients of weak solutions are established assuming that the solutions are in BMO space, the John–Nirenberg space. The results are even new when the drifts are identically zero, because they do not require solutions to be bounded as in the available literature. In the linear setting, the results of the paper also improve the standard Calderón–Zygmund regularity theory to the critical borderline case. When the principal term in the equation does not depend on the solution as its variable, our results recover and sharpen known available results. The approach is based on the perturbation technique introduced by Caffarelli and Peral together with a “double-scaling parameter” technique and the maximal function free approach introduced by Acerbi and Mingione.

The paper is concerned with the unconditional stability and error estimates of fully discrete Galerkin-Galerkin FEMs for the equations of incompressible miscible flows in porous media. We prove that the optimal L2 error estimates hold without any time-step (convergence) conditions, while all previous works require certain time-step restrictions. Theoretical analysis is based on a splitting of the error into two parts: the error from the time discretization of the PDEs and the error from the finite element discretization of the corresponding time-discrete PDEs, which was proposed in our previous work [26, 27]. Numerical results for both two and three-dimensional flow models are presented to confirm our theoretical analysis.