Random covering of an interval and a variation of Kingman's coalescent

We consider the covering of [0, 1] by a large number of small random intervals. We show that a simple variation of Kingman's coalescent describes the emergence of macroscopic connected components. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. 2004     

A coalescent model for the effect of advantageous mutations on the genealogy of a population

When an advantageous mutation occurs in a population, the favorable allele may spread to the entire population in a short time, an event known as a selective sweep. As a result, when we sample n individuals from a population and trace their ancestral lines backwards in time, many lineages may coalesce almost instantaneously at the time of a selective sweep. We show that as the population size goes to infinity, this process converges to a coalescent process called a coalescent with multiple collisions. A better approximation for finite populations can be obtained using a coalescent with simultaneous multiple collisions. We also show how these coalescent approximations can be used to get insight into how beneficial mutations affect the behavior of statistics that have been used to detect departures from the usual Kingman's coalescent.     

Sub-additive ergodic theorems for countable amenable groups

In this paper we generalize Kingman's sub-additive ergodic theorem to a large class of infinite countable discrete amenable group actions.     

Mathematical Modeling of Powder‐Snow Avalanche Flows

Powder‐snow avalanches are violent natural disasters which represent a major risk for infrastructures and populations in mountain regions. In this study we present a novel model for the simulation of avalanches in the aerosol regime. The second scope of this study is to get more insight into the interaction process between an avalanche and a rigid obstacle. An incompressible model of two miscible fluids can be successfully employed in this type of problems. We allow for mass diffusion between two phases according to the Fick's law. The governing equations are discretized with a contemporary fully implicit finite volume scheme. The solver is able to deal with arbitrary density ratios. Several numerical results are presented. Volume fraction, velocity, and pressure fields are presented and discussed. Finally, we point out how this methodology can be used for practical problems.     

On Moments of Bivariate Order Statistics

In the present paper, we give the exact explicit expression for the product moments (of any order) of bivariate order statistics (o.s.) from any arbitrary continuous bivariate distribution function (d.f.). Furthermore, for any arbitrary bivariate uniform d.f., universal distribution-free bounds for the differences of any two different product moments (of order (1,1) or (-1,1)) are given.     

A MICRO‐LEVEL ‘CONSUMER APPROACH’ TO SPECIES POPULATION DYNAMICS

ABSTRACT. In this paper we develop a micro ecosystem model whose basic entities are representative organisms which behave as if maximizing their net offspring under constraints. Net offspring is increasing in prey biomass intake, declining in the loss of own biomass to predators and Allee's law applies. The organism's constraint reflects its perception of how scarce its own biomass and the biomass of its prey is. In the short‐run periods prices (scarcity indicators) coordinate and determine all biomass transactions and net offspring which directly translates into population growth functions. We are able to explicitly determine these growth functions for a simple food web when specific parametric net offspring functions are chosen in the micro‐level ecosystem model. For the case of a single species our model is shown to yield the well‐known Verhulst‐Pearl logistic growth function. With two species in predator‐prey relationship, we derive differential equations whose dynamics are completely characterized and turn out to be similar to the predator‐prey model with Michaelis‐Menten type functional response. With two species competing for a single resource we find that coexistence is a knife‐edge feature confirming Tschirhart's [2002] result in a different but related model.     

Signal moments for the short‐time Fourier transform associated with Hardy–Sobolev derivatives

The short‐time Fourier transform has been shown to be a powerful tool for non‐stationary signals and time‐varying systems. This paper investigates the signal moments in the Hardy–Sobolev space that do not usually have classical derivatives. That is, signal moments become valid for non‐smooth signals if we replace the classical derivatives by the Hardy–Sobolev derivatives. Our work is based on the extension of Cohen's contributions to the local and global behaviors of the signal. The relationship of the moments and spreads of the signal in the time, frequency and short‐time Fourier domain are established in the Hardy–Sobolev space. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the quantity and quality of single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human genome

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are useful markers for locating genes since they occur throughout the human genome and thousands can be scored at once using DNA microarrays. Here, we use branching processes and coalescent theory to show that if one uses Kruglyak's (Nature Gen. 12 (1999) 139–144) model of the growth of the human population and one assumes an average mutation rate of 1×10⁻⁸ per nucleotide per generation then there are about 5.7 million SNP's in the human genome, or one every 526 base pairs. We also obtain results for the number of SNPs that will be found in samples of sizes n⩾2 to gain insight into the number that will be found by various experimental procedures.     

On a further condition in the macroscopic extended model for ultrarelativistic gases

Abstract An exact macroscopic extended model, with many moments, for ultrarelativistic gas has been recently proposed in literature. However, a further condition has not been imposed, even if it is evident in the case of a charged gas and when the electromagnetic field acts as an external force; in the present paper we exploit it and prove that it results in many identities and in residual conditions which allow to determine the arbitrary single variable functions present in the general theory. The result is that they are polynomials determined except for a corresponding number of constants. These are arbitrary constants, so that the macroscopic model remains still more general than the kinetic model. Keywords: Extended Thermodynamics, Fluid Models, Ultra-Relativistic Gas, Entropy Principle Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 74A15, 74A20     

Positive homoclinic solutions of n‐th order difference equations with sign‐changing Green's function

In this paper we, consider an n‐th order nonlinear difference equation with parameter dependence. An exhaustive study of the related Green's function is done. The exact expression of the function is given. The range of parameter for which either it has constant sign or it changes sign is obtained. Some existence results for the nonlinear problem are deduced by using the classical Krasnosel'skii's fixed point theorem on cones and fixed point index theory.     

Menzerath's law at the gene‐exon level in the human genome

A previous discussion of a linguistic law called Menzerath's law (the longer a word, the shorter the syllables) in the genomic context was focused on the genome‐chromosome‐base level (the more number of chromosomes in a genome, the smaller the chromosome size). We apply this linguistic metaphor to more appropriate levels of gene, exon, and base. Using the human gene data, we found that the Menzerath's law at these levels holds true: the more number of exons in a gene, the shorted the averaged exon size. Since this negative correlation can be a trivial consequence of the constant size of the messenger RNA coded by the gene, we also exclude this possibility by showing that messenger RNA size increases with the number of exons. This increase of messenger RNA size is however not fast enough for genes with large number of exons to maintain a constant exon size. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2011.     

Solution of Volterra's population model via block‐pulse functions and Lagrange‐interpolating polynomials

A numerical method for solving Volterra's population model for population growth of a species in a closed system is proposed. Volterra's model is a nonlinear integro‐differential equation where the integral term represents the effects of toxin. The approach is based on hybrid function approximations. The properties of hybrid functions that consist of block‐pulse and Lagrange‐interpolating polynomials are presented. The associated operational matrices of integration and product are then utilized to reduce the solution of Volterra's model to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. The method is easy to implement and computationally very attractive. Applications are demonstrated through an illustrative example. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time development of a Markov process in a finite population: Application to diffusion of information

A systematic procedure of truncating the hierarchy of moment equations describing the stochastic evolution of a Markov process in a finite population is developed. The procedure makes use of the asymptotic expression for a certain higher‐order moment of the relevant probability distribution and yields finite‐size corrections to all lower‐order moments. The usefulness of the method is illustrated by applying it to study the mean and the variance of the stochastic variable n(t), the number of active spreaders at time t, in Bartholomew's model of diffusion of information. The results thus obtained are compared with the ones following from the exact probability distribution for the model (wherever known) and the agreement between the two sets of results is found to be remarkably good.     

A probabilistic approach to the leader problem in random graphs

We study the fixation time of the identity of the leader, that is, the most massive component, in the general setting of Aldous's multiplicative coalescent, which in an asymptotic sense describes the evolution of the component sizes of a wide array of near‐critical coalescent processes, including the classical Erd?s‐Rényi process. We show tightness of the fixation time in the “Brownian” regime, explicitly determining the median value of the fixation time to within an optimal O(1) window. This generalizes ?uczak's result for the Erd?s‐Rényi random graph using completely different techniques. In the heavy‐tailed case, in which the limit of the component sizes can be encoded using a thinned pure‐jump Lévy process, we prove that only one‐sided tightness holds. This shows a genuine difference in the possible behavior in the two regimes.     

Some exact solutions for Toda type lattice differential equations using the improved (G′/G)‐expansion method

Nonlinear lattice differential equations (also known as differential‐difference equations) appear in many applications. They can be thought of as hybrid systems for the inclusion of both discrete and continuous variables. On the basis of an improved version of the basic (G′/G)‐expansion method, we focus our attention towards some Toda type lattice differential systems for constructing further exact traveling wave solutions. Our method provides not only solitary and periodic wave profiles but also rational solutions with more arbitrary parameters. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High‐resolution monotone schemes based on quasi‐characteristics technique

In this article, we consider a new technique that allows us to overcome the well‐known restriction of Godunov's theorem. According to Godunov's theorem, a second‐order explicit monotone scheme does not exist. The techniques in the construction of high‐resolution schemes with monotone properties near the discontinuities of the solution lie in choosing of one of two high‐resolution numerical solutions computed on different stencils. The criterion for choosing the final solution is proposed. Results of numerical tests that compare with the exact solution and with the numerical solution obtained by the first‐order monotone scheme are presented. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 17: 262–276, 2001     

Mover‐stayer model with covariate effects on stayer's probability and mover's transitions

A discrete time Markov chain assumes that the population is homogeneous, each individual in the population evolves according to the same transition matrix. In contrast, a discrete mover‐stayer (MS) model postulates a simple form of population heterogeneity; in each initial state, there is a proportion of individuals who never leave this state (stayers) and the complementary proportion of individuals who evolve according to a Markov chain (movers). The MS model was extended by specifying the stayer's probability to be a logistic function of an individual's covariates but leaving the same transition matrix for all movers. We further extend the MS model by allowing each mover to have her/his covariates dependent transition matrix. The model for a mover's transition matrix is related to the extant Markov chains mixture model with mixing on the speed of movement of Markov chains. The proposed model is estimated using the expectation‐maximization algorithm and illustrated with a large data set on car loans and the simulation.     

(p,q)‐Generalization of Szász–Mirakyan operators

In this paper, we introduce new modifications of Szász–Mirakyan operators based on (p,q)‐integers. We first give a recurrence relation for the moments of new operators and present explicit formula for the moments and central moments up to order 4. Some approximation properties of new operators are explored: the uniform convergence over bounded and unbounded intervals is established, direct approximation properties of the operators in terms of the moduli of smoothness is obtained and Voronovskaya theorem is presented. For the particular case p = 1, the previous results for q‐Sz ász–Mirakyan operators are captured. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exact traveling wave solutions to the fourth‐order dispersive nonlinear Schrödinger equation with dual‐power law nonlinearity

In this paper, we investigate exact traveling wave solutions of the fourth‐order nonlinear Schrödinger equation with dual‐power law nonlinearity through Kudryashov method and (G'/G)‐expansion method. We obtain miscellaneous traveling waves including kink, antikink, and breather solutions. These solutions may be useful in the explanation and understanding of physical behavior of the wave propagation in a highly dispersive optical medium. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coalescent random walks on graphs

Inspired by coalescent theory in biology, we introduce a stochastic model called “multi-person simple random walks” or “coalescent random walks” on a graph G. There are any finite number of persons distributed randomly at the vertices of G. In each step of this discrete time Markov chain, we randomly pick up a person and move it to a random adjacent vertex. To study this model, we introduce the tensor powers of graphs and the tensor products of Markov processes. Then the coalescent random walk on graph G becomes the simple random walk on a tensor power of G. We give estimates of expected number of steps for these persons to meet all together at a specific vertex. For regular graphs, our estimates are exact.