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.     

Stability of a critical nonlinear neutral delay differential equation

This work deals with a scalar nonlinear neutral delay differential equation issued from the study of wave propagation. A critical value of the coefficients is considered, where only few results are known. The difficulty follows from the fact that the spectrum of the linear operator is asymptotically closed to the imaginary axis. An analysis based on the energy method provides new results about the asymptotic stability of constant and periodic solutions. A complete analysis of the stability diagram is given in the linear homogeneous case. Under periodic forcing, existence of periodic solutions is discussed, involving a Diophantine condition on the period of the source.     

Stability and bifurcations for the chronic state in Marchuk's model of an immune system

In the paper we present known and new results concerning stability and the Hopf bifurcation for the positive steady state describing a chronic disease in Marchuk's model of an immune system. We describe conditions guaranteeing local stability or instability of this state in a general case and for very strong immune system. We compare these results with the results known in the literature. We show that the positive steady state can be stable only for very specific parameter values. Stability analysis is illustrated by Mikhailov's hodographs and numerical simulations. Conditions for the Hopf bifurcation and stability of arising periodic orbit are also studied. These conditions are checked for arbitrary chosen realistic parameter values. Numerical examples of arising due to the Hopf bifurcation periodic solutions are presented.     

Entire solutions in periodic lattice dynamical systems

This paper deals with entire solutions of periodic lattice dynamical systems. Unlike homogeneous problems, the periodic equation studied here lacks symmetry between increasing and decreasing pulsating traveling fronts, which affects the construction of entire solutions. In the bistable case, the existence, uniqueness and Liapunov stability of entire solutions are proved by constructing different sub- and supersolutions. In the monostable case, the existence and asymptotic behavior of spatially periodic solutions connecting two steady states are first established. Some new types of entire solutions are then constructed by combining leftward and rightward pulsating traveling fronts with different speeds and a spatially periodic solution. Various qualitative features of the entire solutions are also investigated.     

Two-parameter bifurcations in a network of two neurons with multiple delays

We consider a network of two coupled neurons with delayed feedback. We show that the connection topology of the network plays a fundamental role in classifying the rich dynamics and bifurcation phenomena. Regarding eigenvalues of the connection matrix as bifurcation parameters, we obtain codimension 1 bifurcations (including a fold bifurcation and a Hopf bifurcation) and codimension 2 bifurcations (including fold-Hopf bifurcations and Hopf-Hopf bifurcations). We also give concrete formulae for the normal form coefficients derived via the center manifold reduction that give detailed information about the bifurcation and stability of various bifurcated solutions. In particular, we obtain stable or unstable equilibria, periodic solutions, quasi-periodic solutions, and sphere-like surfaces of solutions. We also show how to evaluate critical normal form coefficients from the original system of delay-differential equations without computing the corresponding center manifolds.     

Existence of periodic solutions for a system of delay differential equations

In this paper we mainly study the existence of periodic solutions for a system of delay differential equations representing a simple two-neuron network model of Hopfield type with time-delayed connections between the neurons. We first examine the local stability of the trivial solution, propose some sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of equilibria and then apply the Poincaré-Bendixson theorem for monotone cyclic feedback delayed systems to establish the existence of periodic solutions. In addition, a sufficient condition that ensures the trivial solution to be globally exponentially stable is also given. Numerical examples are provided to support the theoretical analysis.     

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.     

Periodic solutions for generalized high-order neutral differential equation in the critical case

By applying Mawhin’s continuation theory and some new inequalities, we obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions for a generalized high-order neutral differential equation in the critical case. Moreover, an example is given to illustrate the results.     

On the existence and asymptotic behaviour of solutions of an evolution equation and an application to the Feynman-Kac theorem

In this paper, we study the existence of mild solutions of a semilinear evolution equation on an unbounded interval. The rapidity of the growth of those solutions is characterized. Moreover, we investigate the local and global attractivity of solutions of an equation in question and we describe their asymptotic behaviour. Our investigations are conducted in a real separable Banach space.     

Stability and instability criteria for Kaplan–Yorke solutions

We derive sufficient conditions for the stability and instability of periodic solutions of Kaplan–Yorke type to the equation where f is even in the first and odd in the second argument. The criteria are based on the monotonicity of the coefficient in a transformed version of the variational equation. For the special case of cubic f, we show that this monotonicity property is satisfied if and only if the set is contained in a region E defined by a quadratic form (bounded by an an ellipse or a hyperbola). The coefficients of this quadratic form are expressible in terms of the Taylor coefficients of f. Further, the parameter α in the equation and the amplitude z of the periodic solution are related by an elliptic integral. Using the relation between this integral and the arithmeticgeometric mean, we obtain upper and lower estimates on this relation, and on the inverse function. Combining these estimates with the inequality that defines the region E, we obtain stability criteria explicit in terms of the Taylor coefficients of f. These criteria go well beyond local stability analysis, as examples show. This research was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) Received: March 14, 2005; revised: August 16, 2005     

Multiplicity of positive periodic solutions to a generalized delayed predator–prey system with stocking

In this paper, by using the continuation theorem of coincidence degree theory, the existence of multiple positive periodic solutions for a generalized delayed predator–prey system with stocking is established. When our result is applied to a delayed predator–prey system with nonmonotonic functional response and stocking, we establish the sufficient condition for the existence of multiple positive periodic solutions for the system.     

The band spectrum of the periodic Airy–Schrödinger operator on the real line

We introduce the periodic Airy–Schrödinger operator and we describe its band spectrum. This is an example of solvable model with a periodic potential which is not differentiable at its extrema. We prove that there exists a sequence of explicit constants giving upper bounds of the semiclassical parameter for which explicit estimates are valid. We completely determine the behaviour of the edges of the first spectral band with respect to the semiclassical parameter. Then, we investigate the spectral bands and gaps situated in the range of the potential. We prove precise estimates on the widths of these spectral bands and these spectral gaps and we determine an upper bound on the integrated spectral density in this range. Finally, we get estimates of the edges of spectral bands and thus of the widths of spectral bands and spectral gaps which are stated for values of the semiclassical parameter in fixed intervals.     

Boundedness and periodicity in impulsive ordinary and functional differential equations

In this paper, we study the boundedness and periodicity of solutions for impulsive ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and functional differential equations (FDEs). By using Horn’s fixed point theorem, Hale–Yoshizawa type criteria for the existence of T$T$-periodic solutions are established. To use these criteria, we also give two new boundedness theorems, and establish new existence results for T$T$-periodic solutions which show that the impulsive perturbations do contribute to yielding periodic solutions even when the underlying systems do not enjoy periodic solutions.     

Bifurcation analysis for a regulated logistic growth model

In this paper, we consider a regulated logistic growth model. We first consider the linear stability and the existence of a Hopf bifurcation. We show that Hopf bifurcations occur as the delay τ passes through critical values. Then, using the normal form theory and center manifold reduction, we derive the explicit algorithm determining the direction of Hopf bifurcations and the stability of the bifurcating periodic solutions. Finally, numerical simulation results are given to support the theoretical predictions.     

Periodic solutions of delay equations with three delays via bi-Hamiltonian systems

In this paper we give sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions of delay differential equations with three delays.     

Some results on second-order neutral functional differential equations with infinite distributed delay

In this paper, we consider two types of second-order neutral functional differential equations with infinite distributed delay. By choosing available operators and applying Krasnoselskii’s fixed-point theorem, we obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions to such equations.     

Reflectionless Sturm–Liouville equations

We consider compactly supported perturbations of periodic Sturm–Liouville equations. In this context, one can use the Floquet solutions of the periodic background to define scattering coefficients. We prove that if the reflection coefficient is identically zero, then the operators corresponding to the periodic and perturbed equations, respectively, are unitarily equivalent. In some appendices, we also provide the proofs of several basic estimates, e.g., bounds and asymptotics for the relevant m$m$-functions.     

Delay equations with fluctuating delay related to the regenerative chatter II: analysis of reduced bifurcation equation

In this article, we study the reduced bifurcation equations of the nonlinear delay differential equations with periodic delays, which models the machine tool chatter with continuously modulated spindle speed to determine the periodic solutions and analyze the tool motion. Analytical results show both modest increase of stability and existence of periodic solutions close to the new stability boundary.     

Two periodic solutions of neutral difference systems depending on two parameters

In this paper, we establish existence, multiplicity and nonexistence of periodic solutions for a class of first-order neutral difference systems. Our approach is based on a fixed point theorem in cones as well as some analysis techniques.     

Wave propagation for a two-component lattice dynamical system arising in strong competition models

We study a Lotka-Volterra type competition system with bistable nonlinearity in which the habitat is divided into discrete niches. We show that there exist non-monotone stationary solutions when the migration coefficients are sufficiently small. Also, we prove that the propagation failure phenomenon occurs. Finally, we focus on the traveling wave with nonzero wave speed. By investigating the asymptotic behavior of tails of wave profiles, we show that nonzero speed wave profiles are monotone. Moreover, the nonzero wave speed is unique in the sense that the wave cannot propagate with two different nonzero wave speeds.