Global bifurcation of positive equilibria in nonlinear population models

Existence of nontrivial nonnegative equilibrium solutions for age-structured population models with nonlinear diffusion is investigated. Introducing a parameter measuring the intensity of the fertility, global bifurcation is shown of a branch of positive equilibrium solutions emanating from the trivial equilibrium. Moreover, for the parameter-independent model we establish existence of positive equilibria by means of a fixed point theorem for conical shells.     

The Mackey–Glass model of respiratory dynamics: Review and new results

Since the celebrated Mackey–Glass model of respiratory dynamics was introduced in 1977, many results on its qualitative behavior have been obtained, including oscillation, stability and chaos. The paper reviews some known properties and presents new results for more general models: equations with time-dependent parameters, several delays, a positive periodic equilibrium and distributed delays. The problems considered in the paper involve existence, positivity and permanence of solutions, oscillation and global asymptotic stability. In addition, some general approaches to the study of nonlinear nonautonomous scalar delay equations are outlined. The paper generalizes and unifies existing results and provides an outlook on further studies.     

Propagation and its failure in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction

We study the existence, uniqueness, global asymptotic stability and propagation failure of traveling wave fronts in a lattice delayed differential equation with global interaction for a single species population with two age classes and a fixed maturation period living in a spatially unbounded environment. In the bistable case, under realistic assumptions on the birth function, we prove that the equation admits a strictly monotone increasing traveling wave front. Moreover, if the wave speed does not vanish, then the wave front is unique (up to a translation) and globally asymptotic stable with phase shift. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of “propagation failure” or “pinning” (that is, wave speed c = 0), we also give some criteria for pinning in this paper.     

Entire solutions of reaction-advection-diffusion equations with bistable nonlinearity in cylinders

This paper deals with entire solutions and the interaction of traveling wave fronts of bistable reaction-advection-diffusion equation with infinite cylinders. Assume that the equation admits three equilibria: two stable equilibria 0 and 1, and an unstable equilibrium θ. It is well known that there are different wave fronts connecting any two of those three equilibria. By considering a combination of any two of those different traveling wave fronts and constructing appropriate subsolutions and supersolutions, we establish three different types of entire solutions. Finally, we analyze a model for shear flows in cylinders to illustrate our main results.     

Travelling waves for a size and space structured model in population dynamics: Point to sustained oscillating solution connections

This work is devoted to the study of travelling wave solutions for some size structured model in population dynamics. The population under consideration is also spatially structured and has a nonlocal spatial reproduction. This phenomenon may model the invasion of plants within some empty landscape. Since the corresponding unspatially structured size structured models may induce oscillating dynamics due to Hopf bifurcations, the aim of this work is to prove the existence of point to sustained oscillating solution travelling waves for the spatially structured problem. From a biological view point, such solutions represent the spatial invasion of some species with spatio-temporal patterns at the place where the population is established.     

Entire solutions in monostable reaction-diffusion equations with delayed nonlinearity

Entire solutions for monostable reaction-diffusion equations with nonlocal delay in one-dimensional spatial domain are considered. A comparison argument is employed to prove the existence of entire solutions which behave as two traveling wave solutions coming from both directions. Some new entire solutions are also constructed by mixing traveling wave solutions with heteroclinic orbits of the spatially averaged ordinary differential equations, and the existence of such a heteroclinic orbit is established using the monotone dynamical systems theory. Key techniques include the characterization of the asymptotic behaviors of solutions as t→−∞ in term of appropriate subsolutions and supersolutions. Two models of reaction-diffusion equations with nonlocal delay arising from mathematical biology are given to illustrate main results.     

Global dynamics of Nicholsonʼs blowflies equation revisited: Onset and termination of nonlinear oscillations

We revisit Nicholson?s blowflies model with natural death rate incorporated into the delay feedback. We consider the delay as a bifurcation parameter and examine the onset and termination of Hopf bifurcations of periodic solutions from a positive equilibrium. We show that the model has only a finite number of Hopf bifurcation values and we describe how branches of Hopf bifurcations are paired so the existence of periodic solutions with specific oscillation frequencies occurs only in bounded delay intervals. The bifurcation analysis and the Matlab package DDE-BIFTOOL developed by Engelborghs et al. guide some numerical simulations to identify ranges of parameters for coexisting multiple attractive periodic solutions.     

Traveling fronts in diffusive and cooperative Lotka–Volterra system with nonlocal delays

This paper is concerned with a diffusive and cooperative Lotka–Volterra model with distributed delays and nonlocal spatial effect. By using an iterative technique recently developed by Wang, Li and Ruan (Traveling wave fronts in reaction-diffusion systems with spatio-temporal delays, J. Differential Equations 222 (2006), 185–232), sufficient conditions are established for the existence of traveling wave front solutions connecting the zero and the positive equilibria by choosing different kernels. The result is an extension of an existing result for Fisher-KPP equation with nonlocal delay and is somewhat parallel to the existing result for diffusive and cooperative Lotka–Volterra system with discrete delays. Supported by the NNSF of China (10571078) and the Teaching and Research Award Program for Outstanding Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutions of Ministry of Education of China.     

Positive almost periodic solution for a class of Nicholson’s blowflies model with multiple time-varying delays

In this paper, we study the existence and exponential convergence of positive almost periodic solutions for the generalized Nicholson’s blowflies model with multiple time-varying delays. Under proper conditions, we establish some criteria to ensure that the solutions of this model converge locally exponentially to a positive almost periodic solution. Moreover, we give some examples to illustrate our main results.     

Existence, blow-up and exponential decay estimates for a nonlinear wave equation with boundary conditions of two-point type

This paper is devoted to studying a nonlinear wave equation with boundary conditions of two-point type. First, we state two local existence theorems and under the suitable conditions, we prove that any weak solutions with negative initial energy will blow up in finite time. Next, we give a sufficient condition to guarantee the global existence and exponential decay of weak solutions. Finally, we present numerical results.     

On the geometry of wave solutions of a delayed reaction-diffusion equation

The aim of this paper is to study the existence and the geometry of positive bounded wave solutions to a non-local delayed reaction-diffusion equation of the monostable type.     

Sharp conditions for global stability of Lotka-Volterra systems with distributed delays

We give a criterion for the global attractivity of a positive equilibrium of n-dimensional non-autonomous Lotka-Volterra systems with distributed delays. For a class of autonomous Lotka-Volterra systems, we show that such a criterion is sharp, in the sense that it provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the global asymptotic stability independently of the choice of the delay functions. The global attractivity of positive equilibria is established by imposing a diagonal dominance of the instantaneous negative feedback terms, and relies on auxiliary results showing the boundedness of all positive solutions. The paper improves and generalizes known results in the literature, namely by considering systems with distributed delays rather than discrete delays.     

Travelling wave fronts in reaction-diffusion systems with spatio-temporal delays

This paper deals with the existence of travelling wave fronts in reaction-diffusion systems with spatio-temporal delays. Our approach is to use monotone iterations and a nonstandard ordering for the set of profiles of the corresponding wave system. New iterative techniques are established for a class of integral operators when the reaction term satisfies different monotonicity conditions. Following this, the existence of travelling wave fronts for reaction-diffusion systems with spatio-temporal delays is established. Finally, we apply the main results to a single-species diffusive model with spatio-temporal delay and obtain some existence criteria of travelling wave fronts by choosing different kernels.     

Existence of global solutions of delayed differential equations via retract approach

The purpose of this contribution is to give sufficient conditions for the existence of global solutions or left semi-global solutions for some classes of delayed functional differential equations. The topological approach known as the topological retract principle is used. Inequalities for coordinates of global solutions are derived as a consequence of used method. Examples illustrate the results.     

Global smooth solutions for the quasilinear wave equation with boundary dissipation

We consider the existence of global solutions of the quasilinear wave equation with a boundary dissipation structure of an input-output in high dimensions when initial data and boundary inputs are near a given equilibrium of the system. Our main tool is the geometrical analysis. The main interest is to study the effect of the boundary dissipation structure on solutions of the quasilinear system. We show that the existence of global solutions depends not only on this dissipation structure but also on a Riemannian metric, given by the coefficients and the equilibrium of the system. Some geometrical conditions on this Riemannian metric are presented to guarantee the existence of global solutions. In particular, we prove that the norm of the state of the system decays exponentially if the input stops after a finite time, which implies the exponential stabilization of the system by boundary feedback.     

Traveling wave fronts for generalized Fisher equations with spatio-temporal delays

We study the existence of traveling wave fronts for a reaction-diffusion equation with spatio-temporal delays and small parameters. The equation reduces to a generalized Fisher equation if small parameters are zero. We present two results. In the first one, we deal with the equation with very general kernels and show the persistence of Fisher wave fronts for all sufficiently small parameters. In the second one, we deal with some particular kernels, with which the nonlocal equation can be reduced to a system of singularly perturbed ODEs, and we are then able to apply the geometric singular perturbation theory and phase plane arguments to this system to show the existence of the minimal wave speed, the existence of a continuum of wave fronts, and the global uniqueness of the physical wave front with each wave speed.     

Existence, uniqueness and asymptotic stability of time periodic traveling waves for a periodic Lotka–Volterra competition system with diffusion

We study the existence, uniqueness, and asymptotic stability of time periodic traveling wave solutions to a periodic diffusive Lotka–Volterra competition system. Under certain conditions, we prove that there exists a maximal wave speed c^? such that for each wave speed c?c^?, there is a time periodic traveling wave connecting two semi-trivial periodic solutions of the corresponding kinetic system. It is shown that such a traveling wave is unique modulo translation and is monotone with respect to its co-moving frame coordinate. We also show that the traveling wave solutions with wave speed c<c^? are asymptotically stable in certain sense. In addition, we establish the nonexistence of time periodic traveling waves for nonzero speed c>c^?.     

Existence and controllability results for nondensely defined impulsive semilinear functional differential inclusions

In this paper, we shall establish sufficient conditions for the existence of integral solutions and extremal integral solutions for some nondensely defined impulsive semilinear functional differential inclusions in separable Banach spaces. We shall rely on a fixed point theorem for the sum of completely continuous and contraction operators. The question of controllability of these equations and the topological structure of the solutions set are considered too.     

Global attractivity of the diffusive Nicholson blowflies equation with Neumann boundary condition: A non-monotone case

In this paper, we establish the global attractivity of the positive steady state of the diffusive Nicholson's equation with homogeneous Neumann boundary value under a condition that makes the equation a non-monotone dynamical system. To achieve this, we develop a novel method: combining a dynamical systems argument with maximum principle and some subtle inequalities.     

A multidimensional nonlinear sixth-order quantum diffusion equation

This paper is concerned with the analysis of a sixth-order nonlinear parabolic equation whose solutions describe the evolution of the particle density in a quantum fluid. We prove the global-in-time existence of weak nonnegative solutions in two and three space dimensions under periodic boundary conditions. Moreover, we show that these solutions are smooth and classical whenever the particle density is strictly positive, and we prove the long-time convergence to the spatial homogeneous equilibrium at a universal exponential rate. Our analysis strongly uses the Lyapunov property of the entropy functional.