Blow‐up phenomena for a semilinear parabolic equation with weighted inner absorption under nonlinear boundary flux

Blow‐up phenomena for a nonlinear divergence form parabolic equation with weighted inner absorption term are investigated under nonlinear boundary flux in a bounded star‐shaped region. We assume some conditions on weight function and nonlinearities to guarantee that the solution exists globally or blows up at finite time. Moreover, by virtue of the modified differential inequality, upper and lower bounds for the blow‐up time of the solution are derived in higher dimensional spaces. Three examples are presented to illustrate applications of our results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymptotic behavior of solutions to space‐time fractional diffusion‐reaction equations

This article discusses the analyticity and the long‐time asymptotic behavior of solutions to space‐time fractional diffusion‐reaction equations in . By a Laplace transform argument, we prove that the decay rate of the solution as t→∞ is dominated by the order of the time‐fractional derivative. We consider the decay rate also in a bounded domain. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lot‐sizing policies for deterioration items under two‐level trade credit with partial trade credit to credit‐risk retailer and limited storage capacity

The main purpose of this article is to investigate the optimal wholesaler's replenishment decisions for deterioration items under two levels of the trade credit policy and two storage facilities in order to reflect the supply chain management situation within the economic order quantity framework. In this study, each of the following assumptions have been made: (1) The own warehouse with limited capacity always is not sufficient to store the order quantity, so that a rented warehouse is needed to store the excess units over the capacity of the own warehouse; (2) The wholesaler always obtains the partial trade credit, which is independent of the order quantity offered by the supplier, but the wholesaler offers the full trade credit to the retailer; (3) The wholesaler must take a loan to pay his or her supplier the partial payment immediately when the order is received and then pay off the loan with the entire revenue. Under these three conditions, the wholesaler can obtain the least costs. Furthermore, this study models the wholesaler's optimal replenishment decisions under the aforementioned conditions in the supply chain management. Two theorems are developed to efficiently determine the optimal replenishment decisions for the wholesaler. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theorems that are proven in this study, and the sensitivity analysis with respect to the major parameters in this study is performed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Threshold dynamics of a nonlinear multi‐group epidemic model with two infinite distributed delays

The global stability of equilibria is investigated for a nonlinear multi‐group epidemic model with latency and relapses described by two distributed delays. The results show that the global dynamics are completely determined by the basic reproduction number under certain reasonable conditions on the nonlinear incidence rate. Moreover, compared with the results in Michael Y. Li and Zhisheng Shuai, Journal Differential Equations 248 (2010) 1–20, it is found that the two distributed delays have no impact on the global behaviour of the model. Our study improves and extends some known results in recent literature. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive Fourier decomposition‐based Dirac type time‐frequency distribution

The Dirac‐type time‐frequency distribution (TFD), regarded as ideal TFD, has long been desired. It, until the present time, cannot be implemented, due to the fact that there has been no appropriate representation of signals leading to such TFD. Instead, people have been developing other types of TFD, including the Wigner and the windowed Fourier transform types. This paper promotes a practical passage leading to a Dirac‐type TFD. Based on the proposed function decomposition method, viz., adaptive Fourier decomposition, we establish a rigorous and practical Dirac‐type TFD theory. We do follow the route of analytic signal representation of signals founded and developed by Garbo, Ville, Cohen, Boashash, Picinbono, and others. The difference, however, is that our treatment is theoretically throughout and rigorous. To well illustrate the new theory and the related TFD, we include several examples and experiments of which some are in comparison with the most commonly used TFDs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global stability of a multi‐group model with distributed delay and vaccination

A delayed multi‐group SVEIR epidemic model with vaccination and a general incidence function has been formulated and studied in this paper. Mathematical analysis shows that the basic reproduction number plays a key role in the dynamics of the model: the disease‐free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable when , while the endemic equilibrium exists uniquely and is globally asymptotically stable when . For the proofs, we exploit a graph‐theoretical approach to the method of Lyapunov functionals. Our results show that distributed delay has no impact on the global stability of equilibria, and the results improve and generalize some known results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of awareness program and delay in the epidemic outbreak

In the present paper, an epidemic model has been proposed and analyzed to investigate the impact of awareness program and reporting delay in the epidemic outbreak. Awareness programs induce behavioral changes within the population, and divide the susceptible class into two subclasses, aware susceptible and unaware susceptible. The existence and the stability criteria of the equilibrium points are obtained in terms of the basic reproduction number. Considering time delay as the bifurcating parameter, the Hopf bifurcation analysis has been performed around the endemic equilibrium. The direction of the Hopf bifurcation and the stability of the bifurcating periodic solutions are investigated by using the normal form theory and central manifold theorem. To verify the analytical results, comprehensive numerical simulations are carried out. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Oscillation criteria for higher‐order nonlinear dynamic equations with Laplacians and a deviating argument on time scales

In this paper, we study the n th‐order nonlinear dynamic equation with Laplacians and a deviating argument on an above‐unbounded time scale, where n ?2, New oscillation criteria are established for the cases when n is even and odd and when α  > γ ,α  = γ , and α  < γ , respectively, with α  = α ₁?α _{n  ? 1}. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Delay‐dependent criteria on the global attractivity of Nicholson's blowflies model with patch structure

In this paper, we investigate the effect of delay on the asymptotic behavior of Nicholson's blowflies model with patch structure and multiple time‐varying delays. By using the fluctuation lemma and some differential inequality technique, delay‐dependent criteria are obtained for the global attractivity of the addressed system. Meanwhile, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the feasibility of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synchronization of complex networks with time‐varying inner coupling and outer coupling matrices

Synchronization of complex networks with time‐varying coupling matrices is studied in this paper. Two kinds of time‐varying coupling are taken into account. One is the time‐varying inner coupling in the node state space and the other is the time‐varying outer coupling in the network topology space. By respectively setting linear controllers and adaptive controllers, time‐varying complex networks can be synchronized to a desired state. Meanwhile, different influences of the control parameters of linear controllers and adaptive controllers on the synchronization have also been investigated. Based on the Lyapunov function theory, we construct appropriate positive‐definite functions, and several sufficient synchronization criteria are obtained. Numerical simulations further illustrate the effectiveness of conclusions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.