We consider the long-time behaviour of a West Nile virus (WNv) model consisting of a reaction–diffusion system with free boundaries. Such a model describes the spreading of WNv with the free boundary representing the expanding front of the infected region, which is a time-dependent interval $[g(t), h(t)]$ in the model (Lin and Zhu, Spatial spreading model and dynamics of West Nile virus in birds and mosquitoes with free boundary. J. Math. Biol. 75, 1381–1409, 2017). The asymptotic spreading speed of the front has been determined in Wang et al. (Spreading speed for a West Nile virus model with free boundary. J. Math. Biol. 79, 433–466, 2019) by making use of the associated semi-wave solution, namely $\lim _{t\to \infty } h(t)/t=\lim _{t\to \infty }[\!-g(t)/t]=c_\nu$, with $c_\nu$ the speed of the semi-wave solution. In this paper, by employing new techniques, we significantly improve the estimate in Wang et al. (Spreading speed for a West Nile virus model with free boundary. J. Math. Biol. 79, 433–466, 2019): we show that $h(t)-c_\nu t$ and $g(t)+c_\nu t$ converge to some constants as $t\to \infty$, and the solution of the model converges to the semi-wave solution. The results also apply to a wide class of analogous Ross–MacDonold epidemic models.

Sea ice is crucial in many natural processes and human activities. Understanding the dynamical couplings between the inception, growth and equilibrium of sea ice and the rich fluid mechanical processes occurring at its interface and interior is of relevance in many domains, ranging from geophysics to marine engineering. Here we investigate experimentally the complete freezing process of water with dissolved salt in a standard natural convection system, i.e. the prototypical Rayleigh–Bénard cell. Due to the presence of a mushy phase, the studied system is considerably more complex than the freezing of fresh water in the same conditions (Wang et al., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, vol. 118, issue 10, 2021, e2012870118). We measure the ice thickness and porosity at the dynamical equilibrium state for different initial salinities of the solution and temperature gaps across the cell. These observables are non-trivially related to the controlling parameters of the system as they depend on the heat transport mode across the cell. We identify in the experiments five out of the six possible modes of heat transport. We highlight the occurrence of brine convection through the mushy ice and of penetrative convection in stably stratified liquid underlying the ice. A one-dimensional multi-layer heat flux model built on the known scaling relations of global heat transport in natural convection systems in liquids and porous media is proposed. Given the measured porosity of the ice, it allows us to predict the corresponding ice thickness, in a unified framework.

The rhoptry kinase 18 of Toxoplasma gondii (TgROP18) has been identified as a key virulence factor that allows the parasite to escape from host immune defences and promotes its proliferation in host cells. Although much research is focused on the interaction between host cells and TgROP18, the development of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against TgROP18 has not been reported till date. To produce mAbs targeting TgROP18, two hybridomas secreting mAbs against TgROP18, designated as A1 and T2, were generated using cell fusion technology. The subtypes of the A1 and T2 mAbs were identified as IgG3 λ and IgM κ, and peptide scanning revealed that the core sequences of the antigenic epitopes were 180LRAQRRRSELVFE192 and 351NYFLLMMRAEADM363, respectively. The T2 mAb specifically reacted with both T. gondii type I and Chinese I, but not with T. gondii type II, Plasmodium falciparum or Schistosoma japonicum. Finally, the sequences of heavy chain and light chain complementarity-determining regions of T2 were amplified, cloned and characterized, making the modification of the mAb feasible in the future. The development of mAbs against TgROP18 would aid the investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying the modulation of host cellular functions by TgROP18, and in the development of strategies to diagnose and treat Toxoplasmosis.

To understand the heterogeneous spatial effect on predator–prey models, we study the behaviour of the positive steady states of a predator–prey model as certain parameters are small or large. We compare the case when the model has a spatial degeneracy with the case when it does not have such a degeneracy. Our results show that the effect of the degeneracy can be clearly observed in one limiting case, but not in the others.

We consider the logistic equation −Δu = a (x) u − b (x) uq on all of RN with a (x)/|x|γ and b (x)/|x|τ bounded away from 0 and infinity for all large |x|, where γ > −2, τ ∈ (−∞, ∞). We show that this problem has a unique positive solution. This considerably improves some earlier results. The main new technique here is a Safonov type iteration argument. The result can also be proved by a technique introduced by Marcus and Veron, and the two different techniques are compared.

Let $\Omega$ be a smooth bounded domain in ${R}^N$. We prove general uniqueness results for equations of the form $- \Delta u = au - b(x) f(u)$ in $\Omega$, subject to $u = \infty$ on $\partial \Omega$. Our uniqueness theorem is established in a setting involving Karamata's theory on regularly varying functions, which is used to relate the blow-up behavior of $u(x)$ with $f(u)$ and $b(x)$, where $b \equiv 0$ on $\partial \Omega$ and a certain ratio involving $b$ is bounded near $\partial \Omega$. A key step in our proof of uniqueness uses a modification of an iteration technique due to Safonov.

For a wide class of nonlinearities f(u) satisfying but not necessarily Lipschitz continuous, we study the quasi-linear equation where T = {x = (x1, x2, …, xN) ∈ RN: x1 > 0} with N ≥ 2. By using a new approach based on the weak maximum principle, we show that any positive solution on T must be a function of x1 only. Under our assumptions, the strong maximum principle does not hold in general and the solution may develop a flat core; our symmetry result allows an easy and precise determination of the flat core.

We consider the logistic equation − Δu = a (x) u − b (x) up on all of RN with possibly unbounded coefficients near infinity. We show that under suitable growth conditions of the coefficients, the behaviour of the positive solutions of the logistic equation can be largely determined. We also show that certain linear eigenvalue problems on all of RN have principal eigenfunctions that become unbounded near infinity at an exponential rate. Using these results, we finally show that the logistic equation has a unique positive solution under suitable growth restrictions for its coefficients.

We study, on the entire space ℝN(N [ges ] 1), the diffusive logistic equation

and its generalizations. Here p > 1 is a constant. Problem (1.1) plays an important role in understanding various population models and some other problems in applied mathematics. When λ = 1 and p = 2, it is also known as the Fisher equation and KPP equation, due to the pioneering works of Fisher [8] and Kolmogoroff, Petrovsky and Piscounoff [18].

We study a predator–prey system with Holling–Tanner interaction terms. We show that if the saturation rate m is large, spatially inhomogeneous steady-state solutions arise, contrasting sharply with the small-m case, where no such solution could exist. Furthermore, for large m, we give sharp estimates on the ranges of other parameters where spatially inhomogeneous solutions can exist. We also determine the asymptotic behaviour of the spatially inhomogeneous solutions as m → ∞, and an interesting relation between this population model and free boundary problems is revealed.

Previous fixed-point index calculation results (see [4] and [7]) exploited in the study of population systems on bounded domains are no longer applicable to systems on the whole ℝn, due mainly to the lack of compactness. In this paper, we develop fixed-point index calculation techniques for non-compact operators so that they are applicable to systems on the whole ℝn. We illustrate the use of our fixed-point index calculation results by a simple representative model, namely, the Lotka–Volterra N-species periodic competition system on the whole ℝn.

We study the number and stability of the positive solutions of a reaction–diffusion equation pair. When certain parameters in the equations are large, the equation pair can be viewed as singular or regular perturbations of some single (or essentially single) equation problems, for which the number and stability of their solutions can be well understood. With the help of these simpler equations, we are able to obtain a rather complete understanding of the number and stability of the positive solutions for the equation pair for the cases that certain parameters are large. In particular, we obtain a fairly satisfactory description of the positive solution set of the equation pair.

We study the existence of changing sign solutions of an elliptic semilinear boundary value problem, which arises as a limiting equation of the two species Lotka–Volterra competing equations system. Using variational methods and a result of D'Aujourd'hui, we find conditions which are both sufficient and necessary for this existence problem.

This paper is a sequel to a recent paper by the author in this journal. We prove some -variants of the min-max type critical point theorems with relaxed boundary condition and then apply the abstract results to a semilinear elliptic boundary value problem.

A new deformation lemma for functions satisfying the Palais-Smale condition on a real Banach space is obtained. This is used to deduce some critical point theorems which are extensions of some well known results.