Numerical study of a two-dimensional mathematical model with variable heat exchange coefficient which arises in cryosurgery

We formulate and numerically solve a two-dimensional boundary value problem of Stefan type with nonlinear heat sources of a special kind and a variable heat exchange coefficient. The model under study arises in cryosurgery in the process of freezing some living biological tissue by a cryoinstrument of cylindrical shape placed on the surface of the tissue. The model takes into account the actually observed effect of spatial localization of heat. Some results of the computer simulation are presented.     

Modeling the role of constant and time varying recycling delay on an ecological food chain

We consider a mathematical model of nutrient-autotroph-herbivore interaction with nutrient recycling from both autotroph and herbivore. Local and global stability criteria of the model are studied in terms of system parameters. Next we incorporate the time required for recycling of nutrient from herbivore as a constant discrete time delay. The resulting DDE model is analyzed regarding stability and bifurcation aspects. Finally, we assume the recycling delay in the oscillatory form to model the daily variation in nutrient recycling and deduce the stability criteria of the variable delay model. A comparison of the variable delay model with the constant delay one is performed to unearth the biological relevance of oscillating delay in some real world ecological situations. Numerical simulations are done in support of analytical results.     

Modeling and analysis of a marine plankton system with nutrient recycling and diffusion

This article describes a nutrient‐phytoplankton‐zooplankton system with nutrient recycling in the presence of toxicity. We have studied the dynamical behavior of the system with delayed nutrient recycling in the first part of the article. Uniform persistent of the system is examined. In the second part of the article, we have incorporated diffusion of the plankton population to the system and dynamical behavior of the system is analyzed with instantaneous nutrient recycling. The condition of the diffusion driven instability is obtained. The conditions for the occurrence of Hopf and Turing bifurcation critical line in a spatial domain are derived. Variation of the system with small periodicity of diffusive coefficient has been studied. Stability condition of the plankton system subject to the periodic diffusion coefficient of the zooplankton is derived. It is observed that nutrient‐phytoplankton‐zooplankton interactions are very complex and situation specific. Moreover, we have obtained different exciting results, ranging from stable situation to cyclic oscillatory behavior may occur under different favorable conditions, which may give some insights for predictive management. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 229–241, 2015     

A novel coupled system of non-local integro-differential equations modelling Young’s modulus evolution,nutrients’ supply and consumption during bone fracture healing

During fracture healing, a series of complex coupled biological and mechanical phenomena occurs. They include: (i) growth and remodelling of bone, whose Young’s modulus varies in space and time; (ii) nutrients’ diffusion and consumption by living cells. In this paper, we newly propose to model these evolution phenomena. The considered features include: (i) a new constitutive equation for growth simulation involving the number of sensor cells; (ii) an improved equation for nutrient concentration accounting for the switch between Michaelis–Menten kinetics and linear consumption regime; (iii) a new constitutive equation for Young’s modulus evolution accounting for its dependence on nutrient concentration and variable number of active cells. The effectiveness of the model and its predictive capability are qualitatively verified by numerical simulations (using COMSOL) describing the healing of bone in the presence of damaged tissue between fractured parts.     

MODELING NUTRIENT (DISSOLVED INORGANIC NITROGEN) AND PLANKTON DYNAMICS AT SAGAR ISLAND OF HOOGHLY–MATLA ESTUARINE SYSTEM,WEST BENGAL,INDIA

Abstract Degradation of litter from mangrove forests adjacent to the creeks at Sagar Island of the Hooghly–Matla estuarine ecosystem is one of the principal sources of nutrient to the estuary. Nutrients augment the growth of phytoplankton, which in turn stimulates the production of zooplankton. Zooplankton serves as major food source for fish population of this estuarine system. Here, a dynamic model with three state variables (nutrient, phytoplankton, and zooplankton) is proposed using nitrogen (mgN/l) as currency. Input of dissolved inorganic nitrogen as nutrient, water temperature, surface solar irradiance, and salinity of upstream and downstream of the estuary, collected from the field, are incorporated as graph time functions in the model. Calibration and validation are performed by using collected data of two consecutive years. Model results indicate that the growth of zooplankton and phytoplankton are enhanced by increase in nutrient input in the system. Zooplankton biomass is affected by decrease in the salinity of the estuary. Sensitivity analysis results at ±10% indicate that maximum growth rate of phytoplankton (P_max) is the most sensitive parameter to the nutrient pool although growth rate of zooplankton (g_z) and half saturation constant for phytoplankton grazing by zooplankton (K_z) are most sensitive parameters to phytoplankton and zooplankton compartments, respectively. The model depicts the present status of plankton dynamics, which serve as major food resource for herbivorous and carnivorous fish species of the estuary. Effect of deforestation is tested in the model. Therefore, from management perspective, this model can be used to predict the impact of mangroves on nutrient and plankton dynamics, which will give complete information of both shell and fin fish productions in the estuary.     

Bottom up and top down effect on toxin producing phytoplankton and its consequence on the formation of plankton bloom

We consider a plankton-nutrient interaction model consisting of phytoplankton, zooplankton and dissolved limiting nutrient with general nutrient uptake functions and instantaneous nutrient recycling. In this model, it is assumed that phytoplankton releases toxic chemical for self defense against their predators. The model system is studied analytically and the threshold values for the existence and stability of various steady states are worked out. It is observed that if the maximal zooplankton conversion rate crosses a certain critical value, the system enters into Hopf bifurcation. Finally it is observed that to control the planktonic bloom and to maintain stability around the coexistence equilibrium we have to control the nutrient input rate specially caused by artificial eutrophication. In case if it is not possible to control the nutrient input rate, one could use toxic phytoplankton to prevent the recurrence bloom.     

Estimation of coefficient of variation in a weighted inverse Gaussian model

The coefficient of variation is an important parameter in many physical, biological and medical sciences. In this paper we study the estimation of the square of the coefficient of variation in a weighted inverse Gaussian model which is a mixture of the inverse Gaussian and the length biased inverse Gaussian distribution. This represents a rich family of distributions for different values of the mixing parameter and can be used for modelling various life testing situations. The maximum likelihood as well as the Bayes estimates of the parameters are obtained. These estimates are used to derive the estimates of the square of the coefficient of variation of the model under study. Several important data sets are analysed to illustrate the results. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一类水域生物动力系统的定性分析

对由水域中浮游生物和为其提供营养的生物之间相互作用构成的动力系统进行了研究,得到了该系统在R2+内有唯一渐近稳定的平衡点且无周期轨道,做出了该系统轨线的全局结构,给出了所得结论的生物意义.     

On the Description of Growth in Saturated Living Tissues

A comprehensive model for biological tissues must include the anisotropic tissue structure, the interstitial liquid wich saturated the tissue and the growth mechanism of the tissue. In the present contribution this is done by use of a three phasic model with a solid, liquid and nutrient phase in the framework of the porous media theory (TPM). In order to characterize the transversal isotropic skeleton behavior, an invariant formulation of the Helmholtz free energy function and the permeability tensor is suggested. The growth mechanism is characterizes by a mass transfer between the nutrient and solid phase. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Dynamic modelling of dissolved oxygen in the creeks of Sagar island,Hooghly–Matla estuarine system,West Bengal,India

Hooghly–Matla estuarine ecosystem is one of the largest estuarine ecosystems of the world. Sagar island is the largest delta in this estuarine complex. This island is criss-crossed by small and large creeks with mangrove vegetation and all are connected to the principal estuarine water. Decomposition of mangrove litter in soil is major source of inorganic nutrient to phytoplankton of the adjacent creeks. Deforestation of mangrove affects the primary production, which in turn reduces the availability of dissolved oxygen for the organisms residing in the estuary. Considering the importance of dissolved oxygen in various aspects of aquatic life, a dynamic model of dissolved oxygen at Sagar island of Hooghly–Matla estuarine complex with the help of single dimension differential equation is proposed in the present paper. Different physical, chemical and biological factors such as solar irradiance, temperature, salinity of water, particulate organic matter, re-aeration, wind velocity, phytoplankton and zooplankton, which control the fluctuation of dissolved oxygen, are included in the present model. Most of the parameter values are collected directly from the field surveys. The parameter values which are not able to collect from the field, obtained from literatures are calibrated. To make the model realistic it is properly validated with observed data and to know the statistical significance, chi square goodness fit test is performed. Field surveys are performed over two years. During calibration and validation, two sets of data (first year and second year data) are used. Chi-square values are 5.97 and 6.17 for first and second sets of data respectively (p < 0.05). Sensitivity analysis reveals that optimal light intensity is the most sensitive parameter for dissolved oxygen dynamics. Results also show that wind velocity, solar irradiation, salinity of water and temperature are important factors for controlling the dynamics of dissolved oxygen. Macrophytes have very little contribution to oxygen production in the creeks of Sagar island. Model reveals that low dissolved oxygen in the creek water is one of the causes of decline in fish population of the estuary.     

Stability and bifurcation of a nutrient-autotroph-herbivore model with nutrient recycling under two delays

In this article, a nutrient-autotroph-herbivore model with nutrient recycling is constructed. Holling type-II functional response for the relation between nutrient and autotroph while Beddington-DeAngelis-type functional response for autotroph and herbivore relation are considered here. It is plausible that the conversion of nutrient from dead biomass (autotroph and herbivore) by decomposers (i.e., bacteria and fungi) are not instantaneous, which takes times. Hereby, two different discrete time delays for the decomposition process are introduced. The local and global stability behaviours of both nondelayed and delayed models are analysed around the equilibrium points. The stability and direction of Hopf-bifurcation using normal form theory and centre manifold theorem by taking one delay as a bifurcation parameter while keeping the other one fixed in the stable interval are discussed. It is observed that if the delay increases, the system loses its stability and hence becomes unstable. It is analysed how autotroph-herbivore ecosystem can be affected by the quantity of input nutrient and the properties of delays. The quantity of nutrient and the length of delays play significant roles in determining the stability of the system since a sufficiently small amount of nutrients or a long enough delay leads to the extinction of a species.     

A coefficient identification problem for a mathematical model related to ductal carcinoma in situ

We consider a coefficient identification problem for a mathematical model with free boundary related to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). This inverse problem aims to determine the nutrient consumption rate from additional measurement data at a boundary point. We first obtain a global‐in‐time uniqueness of our inverse problem. Then based on the optimization method, we present a regularization algorithm to recover the nutrient consumption rate. Finally, our numerical experiment shows the effectiveness of the proposed numerical method.     

Modeling and analysis of the removal of an organic pollutant from a water body using fungi

In this paper, a non linear mathematical model for removing an organic pollutant such as a dye from a water body is proposed and analyzed. In the modeling process four variables are considered, namely, (i) the concentration of the dye, (ii) the density of fungus population, (iii) the concentration of a nutrient and (iv) the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO). It is assumed that an organic pollutant is present in water with given concentration or discharged with a constant rate in water. It is assumed further that fungus population is kept alive and active due to supply of a nutrient. It is considered that nutrient and oxygen are supplied to the water body from outside with constant rates. The model is analyzed by using the stability theory of differential equations. The model analysis shows that organic pollutant can be removed from the water body by fungus population and the level of degradation depends upon the concentration of organic pollutant, the density of fungal population and the interaction processes involved.The simulation analysis of the proposed model confirms the analytical results. It is also found that these results are qualitatively in line with the experimental observations of one of the authors (Sanghi).     

Lake eutrophication: Identification of tributary nutrient loading and sediment resuspension dynamics

In a shallow lake system two problems are of particular significance. It is important to know the distribution of (polluting) nutrient loads among various agricultural and municipal sources within the lake's catchment. It is also important to know what effects the nutrients already deposited in the lake's sediments will have on the biological and chemical features of the lake's ecological system. The paper presents results for the analysis of time-series observations of sediment resuspension characteristics in Lake Balaton, Hungary, and of nutrient loadings in the principal tributary of this lake, the River Zala. Two recursive methods of estimation, an instrumental-variable (IV) algorithm and the extended Kalman filter (EKF), are used for analysis of the time series. The paper takes the view that models are most useful in terms of their failure to replicate observed behavior, in that this is the primary stimulus to insight and progress in understanding. Brief comments on some limitations of method are given. Two potentially fruitful modifications of existing identification methods are outlined, one being broadly consistent with the conceptual analog of engineering structural analysis, while the second makes reference to the development of algorithms based on expert systems.     

Global asymptotic behavior in chemostat-type competition models with delay

The asymptotic behavior of solutions of a chemostat-type model in which two species compete for a limiting nutrient supplied at a constant rate is considered. The model incorporates a general nutrient uptake function and two distributed delays. The first delay models the fact that the nutrient is partially recycled after the death of the biomass by bacterial decomposition and the second indicates that the growth of the species depends on the past concentration of the nutrient. Furthermore, it is assumed that there is interspecific competition between the two species as well as intraspecific competition within each species. Conditions for boundedness of solutions and existence of nonnegative equilibria are given. By constructing appropriate Liapunov-like functionals, some sufficient conditions for global attractivity of the positive equilibrium is obtained. The combined effects of the two different delays are studied. The main results of Freedman and Xu [H.I. Freedman, Y. Xu, Models of competition in the chemostat with instantaneous and delayed nutrient recycling, J. Math. Biol. 31 (1993) 513–527] and Ruan and He [S. Ruan, X.-Z. He, Global stability in chemostat-type competition models with nutrient recycling, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 58 (1) (1998) 170–192] are improved and extended.     

Numerical method for solving an inverse problem for a population model

The inverse problem of determining the growth rate coefficient of biological objects from additional information on their time-dependent density is considered. Two nonlinear integral equations are derived for the unknown coefficient, which is determined on part of its domain from one equation and on the remaining part from the other equation. The nonlinear integral equations are solved by iterative methods. The convergence conditions for the iterative methods are formulated, and results of numerical experiments are presented.     

Management of legacy nutrient stores through nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization,catch crops,and gypsum treatment

We develop a modeling framework, based on discrete-time dynamic optimization, to study the effect of legacy nutrient stores and soil nutrient dynamics on optimal nutrient management and agri-environmental policy in crop production. Three alternative measures are studied to reduce nutrient loss: reduced fertilization, nonlegume catch crop cultivation and gypsum amendment. According to our results, landowner can bring down excessively high phosphorus stocks causing environmental damage within decades, by simultaneous optimization of the nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers on the economic basis of profit maximization. Our results suggest that nitrogen loss abatement with catch crops is socially optimal, whereas the use of gypsum is well justified as a temporary measure on soils with high soil phosphorus levels. A dynamic tax-subsidy-scheme, which takes into account the current soil nutrient levels and field attributes such as soil texture, can enforce the socially optimal outcome. The welfare losses of the static steady-state-based tax-subsidy-schemes are increasing functions of the legacy nutrient stores and soil's ability to hold nutrients. Recommendations for Resource Managers

• We develop a modeling framework to study the effect of the legacy nutrient stores and the soil nutrient dynamics on the optimal nutrient management and agri-environmental policy in crop production.
• Nonlegume catch crop cultivation is a socially optimal long-term measure for nitrogen loss abatement, whereas phosphorus loss abatement with gypsum is socially optimal on soils with high soil phosphorus levels.
• A dynamic tax-subsidy-scheme, which is adjusted annually according to the soil nutrient stocks, leads to social optimum. Although this can be difficult to implement in practice, it can be useful in the derivation of the simpler, static tax-subsidy-schemes.
• If a gypsum subsidy is paid for those years, where the soil P level is above the threshold level for the gypsum application, the welfare loss of the static steady-state-based tax-subsidy-schemes is almost zero.
• Simultaneous adjustment of the N and P fertilizer rates enables the use of simple, static and soil-texture-ignorant tax-subsidy schemes, without a notable social welfare loss

     

Storage problems in continuous time with random inputs,random outputs,and deterministic release

The subject of study here is the model of a dam, with random inputs and outputs along with a deterministic release. The amounts of the Poisson jumps, either up or down, are independently and identically distributed. Closed form solutions are obtained for the Laplace transforms of first passage densities to different situations of overflow or emptiness. These results can throw insights regarding different threshold studies in storage, inventory, biological, and environmental problems. The closed form solutions are obtained by applying imbedding methods for different types of densities conceptualized in novel ways.