In this paper, we study the existence of travelling wave solutions and the spreading speed for the solutions of an age-structured epidemic model with nonlocal diffusion. Our proofs make use of the comparison principles both to construct suitable sub/super-solutions and to prove the regularity of travelling wave solutions.

We introduce a free boundary model to study the effect of vesicle transport onto neurite growth. It consists of systems of drift-diffusion equations describing the evolution of the density of antero- and retrograde vesicles in each neurite coupled to reservoirs located at the soma and the growth cones of the neurites, respectively. The model allows for a change of neurite length as a function of the vesicle concentration in the growth cones. After establishing existence and uniqueness for the time-dependent problem, we briefly comment on possible types of stationary solutions. Finally, we provide numerical studies on biologically relevant scales using a finite volume scheme. We illustrate the capability of the model to reproduce cycles of extension and retraction.

We study the Cauchy problem on the real line for the nonlocal Fisher-KPP equation in one spatial dimension,

\begin{equation*} u_t = D u_{xx} + u(1-\phi *u), \end{equation*}

$\phi *u$

$\phi (y) \equiv H\left (\frac{1}{4}-y^2\right )$

$u=1$

$D$

$\Delta _1 \approx 0.00297$

$D \ll 1$

$O(1)$

$u=O(1)$

$u$

$D \to 0^+$

$D \geq \Delta _1$

$2 \sqrt{D}$

$0 \lt D \lt \Delta _1$

$u=0$

$D$

We provide well-posedness results for nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs) given by reaction–diffusion equations describing the concentration of oxygen in encapsulated cells. The cells are described in terms of a core and a shell, which introduces a discontinuous diffusion coefficient as the material properties of the core and shell differ. In addition, the cells are subject to general nonlinear consumption of oxygen. As no monotonicity condition is imposed on the consumption, monotone operator theory cannot be used. Moreover, the discontinuity in the diffusion coefficient bars us from applying classical results on strong solutions. However, by directly applying a Galerkin method, we obtain uniqueness and existence of the strong form solution. These results provide the basis to study the dynamics of cells in critical states.

This article offers an advanced and novel investigation into the intricate propagation dynamics of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky system with non-local delayed interaction, which exhibits dynamical transition structure from bistable to monostable. We first solved the enduring open problem concerning the existence, uniqueness and the speed sign of the bistable travelling waves. In the monostable case, we developed and derived new results for the minimal wave speed selection, which, as an application, further improved the existing investigations on pushed and pulled wavefronts. Our results can provide new estimate to the minimal speed as well as to the determinacy of the transition parameters. Moreover, these results can be directly applied to standard localised models and delayed reaction diffusion models by choosing appropriate kernel functions.

We are interested in the law of the first passage time of an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process to time-varying thresholds. We show that this problem is connected to the laws of the first passage time of the process to members of a two-parameter family of functional transformations of a time-varying boundary. For specific values of the parameters, these transformations appear in a realisation of a standard Ornstein–Uhlenbeck bridge. We provide three different proofs of this connection. The first is based on a similar result for Brownian motion, the second uses a generalisation of the so-called Gauss–Markov processes, and the third relies on the Lie group symmetry method. We investigate the properties of these transformations and study the algebraic and analytical properties of an involution operator which is used in constructing them. We also show that these transformations map the space of solutions of Sturm–Liouville equations into the space of solutions of the associated nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Lastly, we interpret our results through the method of images and give new examples of curves with explicit first passage time densities.

In a smoothly bounded domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n$, $n\ge 1$, this manuscript considers the homogeneous Neumann boundary problem for the chemotaxis system

\begin{eqnarray*} \left \{ \begin{array}{l} u_t = \Delta u - \nabla \cdot (u\nabla v), \\[5pt] v_t = \Delta v + u - \alpha uv, \end{array} \right . \end{eqnarray*}

$\alpha \gt 0$

It is shown that there exists $\delta _\star =\delta _\star (n)\gt 0$ such that for any given $\alpha \ge \frac{1}{\delta _\star }$ and for any suitably regular initial data satisfying $v(\cdot, 0)\le \delta _\star$, this problem admits a unique classical solution that stabilizes to the constant equilibrium $(\frac{1}{|\Omega |}\int _\Omega u(\cdot, 0), \, \frac{1}{\alpha })$ in the large time limit.

In this paper, we consider the following PDE-ODE system modelling cancer invasion with slow diffusion and ECM remodelling,

\[ \begin{cases} u_t=\Delta u^m-\chi\nabla\cdot(u\nabla v)-\xi\nabla\cdot(u\nabla\omega)+\mu u(1-u-\omega), \\ v_t=\Delta v+u-v, \\ \omega_t={-}v\omega+\eta \omega(1-u-\omega). \end{cases} \]

$\eta =0$

$\eta >0$

$\eta =0$

$\eta >0$

Infection mechanism plays a significant role in epidemic models. To investigate the influence of saturation effect, a nonlocal (convolution) dispersal susceptible-infected-susceptible epidemic model with saturated incidence is considered. We first study the impact of dispersal rates and total population size on the basic reproduction number. Yang, Li and Ruan (J. Differ. Equ. 267 (2019) 2011–2051) obtained the limit of basic reproduction number as the dispersal rate tends to zero or infinity under the condition that a corresponding weighted eigenvalue problem has a unique positive principal eigenvalue. We remove this additional condition by a different method, which enables us to reduce the problem on the limiting profile of the basic reproduction number into that of the spectral bound of the corresponding operator. Then we establish the existence and uniqueness of endemic steady states by a equivalent equation and finally investigate the asymptotic profiles of the endemic steady states for small and large diffusion rates to provide reference for disease prevention and control, in which the lack of regularity of the endemic steady state and Harnack inequality makes the limit function of the sequence of the endemic steady state hard to get. Finally, we find whether lowing the movements of susceptible individuals can eradicate the disease or not depends on not only the sign of the difference between the transmission rate and the recovery rate but also the total population size, which is different from that of the model with standard or bilinear incidence.

This paper investigates the separation property in binary phase-segregation processes modelled by Cahn-Hilliard type equations with constant mobility, singular entropy densities and different particle interactions. Under general assumptions on the entropy potential, we prove the strict separation property in both two and three-space dimensions. Namely, in 2D, we notably extend the minimal assumptions on the potential adopted so far in the literature, by only requiring a mild growth condition of its first derivative near the singular points $\pm 1$, without any pointwise additional assumption on its second derivative. For all cases, we provide a compact proof using De Giorgi’s iterations. In 3D, we also extend the validity of the asymptotic strict separation property to the case of fractional Cahn-Hilliard equation, as well as show the validity of the separation when the initial datum is close to an ‘energy minimizer’. Our framework offers insights into statistical factors like particle interactions, entropy choices and correlations governing separation, with broad applicability.

Flowering plants depend on some animals for pollination and contribute to nourish the animals in natural environments. We call these animals pollinators and build a plants-pollinators cooperative model with impulsive effect on a periodically evolving domain. Next, we define the ecological reproduction index for single plant model and plants-pollinators system, respectively, whose threshold dynamics, including the extinction, persistence and coexistence, is established by the method of upper and lower solutions. Theoretical analysis shows that a large domain evolution rate has a positive influence on the survival of pollinators whether or not the impulsive effect occurs, and the pulse eliminates the pollinators even when the evolution rate is high. Moreover, some selective numerical simulations are still performed to explain our theoretical results.

This paper deals with the following quasilinear chemotaxis system with consumption of chemoattractant

\[ \left\{\begin{array}{@{}ll} u_t=\Delta u^{m}-\nabla\cdot(u\nabla v),\quad & x\in \Omega,\quad t>0,\\ v_t=\Delta v-uv,\quad & x\in \Omega,\quad t>0\\ \end{array}\right. \]

$\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^N(N=3,\,4,\,5)$

$\partial \Omega$

$m>\max \{1,\,\frac {3N-2}{2N+2}\}$

$(\bar {u}_0,\,0)$

$t\rightarrow \infty$

$\bar {u}_0=\frac {1}{|\Omega |}\int _\Omega u_0$

$m>\frac {3N-2}{2N}$

$N\geq 3$

$m>\frac {3N}{2N+2}$

$N\geq 2$

Existence of specific eternal solutions in exponential self-similar form to the following quasilinear diffusion equation with strong absorption

\[ \partial_t u=\Delta u^m-|x|^{\sigma}u^q, \]

$(t,\,x)\in (0,\,\infty )\times \mathbb {R}^N$

$m>1$

$q\in (0,\,1)$

$\sigma =\sigma _c:=2(1-q)/ (m-1)$

\[ u(t,x)={\rm e}^{-\alpha t}f(|x|\,{\rm e}^{\beta t}), \quad \alpha=\frac{2}{m-1}\beta, \]

$\beta ^*\in (0,\,\infty )$

$(u_A)_{A>0}$

$(f_A)_{A>0}$

$f_A(0)=A$

$f_A'(0)=0$

$\sigma \in (0,\,\sigma _c)$

For $s\in [\tfrac {1}{2},\, 1)$, let $u$ solve $(\partial _t - \Delta )^s u = Vu$ in $\mathbb {R}^{n} \times [-T,\, 0]$ for some $T>0$ where $||V||_{ C^2(\mathbb {R}^n \times [-T, 0])} < \infty$. We show that if for some $0<\mathfrak {K} < T$ and $\epsilon >0$

\[ {\unicode{x2A0D}}-_{[-\mathfrak{K},\, 0]} u^2(x, t) {\rm d}t \leq Ce^{-|x|^{2+\epsilon}}\ \forall x \in \mathbb{R}^n, \]

$u \equiv 0$

$\mathbb {R}^{n} \times [-T,\, 0]$

We analyse the asymptotic dynamics of quasilinear parabolic equations when solutions may grow up (i.e. blow up in infinite time). For such models, there is a global attractor which is unbounded and the semiflow induces a nonlinear dynamics at infinity by means of a Poincaré projection. In case the dynamics at infinity is given by a semilinear equation, then it is gradient, consisting of the so-called equilibria at infinity and their corresponding heteroclinics. Moreover, the diffusion and reaction compete for the dimensionality of the induced dynamics at infinity. If the equilibria are hyperbolic, we explicitly prove the occurrence of heteroclinics between bounded equilibria and/or equilibria at infinity. These unbounded global attractors describe the space of admissible initial data at event horizons of certain black holes.

In this paper, we analyse Turing instability and bifurcations in a host–parasitoid model with nonlocal effect. For a ordinary differential equation model, we provide some preliminary analysis on Hopf bifurcation. For a reaction–diffusion model with local intraspecific prey competition, we first explore the Turing instability of spatially homogeneous steady states. Next, we show that the model can undergo Hopf bifurcation and Turing–Hopf bifurcation, and find that a pair of spatially nonhomogeneous periodic solutions is stable for a (8,0)-mode Turing–Hopf bifurcation and unstable for a (3,0)-mode Turing–Hopf bifurcation. For a reaction–diffusion model with nonlocal intraspecific prey competition, we study the existence of the Hopf bifurcation, double-Hopf bifurcation, Turing bifurcation, and Turing–Hopf bifurcation successively, and find that a spatially nonhomogeneous quasi-periodic solution is unstable for a (0,1)-mode double-Hopf bifurcation. Our results indicate that the model exhibits complex pattern formations, including transient states, monostability, bistability, and tristability. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to illustrate complex dynamics and verify our theoretical results.

We investigate an inverse boundary value problem of determination of a nonlinear law for reaction-diffusion processes, which are modeled by general form semilinear parabolic equations. We do not assume that any solutions to these equations are known a priori, in which case the problem has a well-known gauge symmetry. We determine, under additional assumptions, the semilinear term up to this symmetry in a time-dependent anisotropic case modeled on Riemannian manifolds, and for partial data measurements on ${\mathbb R}^n$.

Moreover, we present cases where it is possible to exploit the nonlinear interaction to break the gauge symmetry. This leads to full determination results of the nonlinear term. As an application, we show that it is possible to give a full resolution to classes of inverse source problems of determining a source term and nonlinear terms simultaneously. This is in strict contrast to inverse source problems for corresponding linear equations, which always have the gauge symmetry. We also consider a Carleman estimate with boundary terms based on intrinsic properties of parabolic equations.

Conventional preytaxis systems assume that prey-tactic velocity is proportional to the prey density gradient. However, many experiments exploring the predator–prey interactions show that it is the predator’s acceleration instead of velocity that is proportional to the prey density gradient in the prey-tactic movement, which we call preytaxis with prey-induced acceleration. Mathematical models of preytaxis with prey-induced acceleration were proposed by Arditi et al. ((2001) Theor. Popul. Biol. 59(3), 207–221) and Sapoukhina et al. ((2003) Am. Nat. 162(1), 61–76) to interpret the spatial heterogeneity of predators and prey observed in experiments. This paper is devoted to exploring the qualitative behaviour of such preytaxis systems with prey-induced acceleration and establishing the global existence of classical solutions with uniform-in-time bounds in all spatial dimensions. Moreover, we prove the global stability of spatially homogeneous prey-only and coexistence steady states with decay rates under certain conditions on system parameters. For the parameters outside the stability regime, we perform linear stability analysis to find the possible patterning regimes and use numerical simulations to demonstrate that spatially inhomogeneous time-periodic patterns will typically arise from the preytaxis system with prey-induced acceleration. Noticing that conventional preytaxis systems are unable to produce spatial patterns, our results imply that the preytaxis with prey-induced acceleration is indeed more appropriate than conventional preytaxis to interpret the spatial heterogeneity resulting from predator–prey interactions.

In this paper, we consider reaction-diffusion epidemic models with mass action or standard incidence mechanism and study the impact of limiting population movement on disease transmissions. We set either the dispersal rate of the susceptible or infected people to zero and study the corresponding degenerate reaction-diffusion model. Our main approach to study the global dynamics of these models is to construct delicate Lyapunov functions. Our results show that the consequences of limiting the movement of susceptible or infected people depend on transmission mechanisms, model parameters and population size.

This article is devoted to the analysis of the parabolic–parabolic chemotaxis system with multi-components over $\mathbb{R}^2$. The optimal small initial condition on the global existence of solutions for multi-species chemotaxis model in the fully parabolic situation had not been attained as far as the author knows. In this paper, we prove that under the sub-critical mass condition, any solutions to conflict-free system exist globally. Moreover, the global existence of solutions to system with strong self-repelling effect has been discussed even for large initial data. The proof is based on the modified free energy functional and the Moser–Trudinger inequality for system.