Catch‐to‐stock dependence: The case of small pelagic fishery with bounded harvesting effort

Biologic characteristics of schooling fish species explain why the rates of harvesting in pelagic fisheries are not proportional to the existent stock size and may exhibit no variation between the periods of fish abundance and scarcity. Therefore, the stock‐dependent nonlinearities in catchability must be reflected in the design of flexible fishing policies, which target the sustainable exploitation of this important natural resource. In this study, such nonlinearities are expressed through eventual variability of the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter that measures the sensitivity of an additional catch yield to marginal changes in the fish‐stock level. Using the optimal control modeling framework, we establish that each value of the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter generates a unique steady‐state size of the fish stock and the latter engenders an optimal fishing policy that can be sustained as long as the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter remains unchanged. We also prove the continuous dependence of the steady‐state stock and underlying fishing policy upon the mentioned “catch‐to‐stock” parameter and then focus on the analysis of the equilibrium responses to changes in this parameter induced by external perturbations. Recommendations for Resource Managers

• Marginal catches of pelagic fish stocks do not react in a linear way to changes in existing stock level, and the latter is captured in our model by the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter . Each observable value of engenders a unique steady‐state stock size that defines an optimal fishing policy, which can be sustained as long as remains unchanged.
• The ability of fishery managers to detect variations in the levels of hyperstability expressed by the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter may help them to anticipate new equilibrium responses in stock evolution and to make timely adjustments in the fishing policy.
• Plausible estimations of the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter , as well as detection of its possible alterations, can be carried out within the framework of Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) approach where different data collected inside and outside the fishery are contrasted via the validation of a relatively simple decision‐making model (presented in this paper) coupled with other “operation models” of higher complexity.
• If the “catch‐to‐stock” parameter cannot be reasonably assessed (), the fishery managers may rely upon the lower bound of stationary stock size, which depends on economic and biological factors (such as the present and future economic values of the exploited fish stock, its marginal productivity, and underlying dynamics of biological growth).

     

Coexistence and harvesting control policy in a food chain model with mutual defense of prey

A model is proposed to understand the dynamics in a food chain (one predator‐two prey). Unlike many approaches, we consider mutualism (for defense against predators) between the two groups of prey. We investigate the conditions for coexistence and exclusion. Unlike Elettreby's (2009) results, we show that prey can coexist in the absence of predators (as expected since there is no competition between prey). We also show the existence of Hopf bifurcation and limit cycle in the model, and numerically present bifurcation diagrams in terms of mutualism and harvesting. When the harvest is practiced for profit making, we provide the threshold effort value that determines the profitability of the harvest. We show that there is zero profit when the constant effort is applied. Below (resp. above) , there will always be gain (resp. loss). In the case of gain, we provide the optimal effort and optimal steady states that produce maximum profit and ensure coexistence. Recommendations for resource managers As a result of our investigation, we bring the following to the attention of management:

• 1. In the absence of predators, different groups of prey can coexist if they mutually help each other (no competition among them).
• 2. There is a maximal effort to invest in order to gain profit from the harvest. Above , the investment will result in a loss.
• 3. In the case of profit from harvest, policy makers should recommend the optimal effort to be applied and the optimal stock to harvest. This will guarantee maximum profit while ensuring sustainability of all species.

     

Analysis of lettuce evapotranspiration across soil water

In this study, we evaluated the lettuce accumulated evapotranspiration (ET) across four levels of irrigation, using a nonlinear mixed‐effects model. The plants were grown in protected environments and monitored over 23 consecutive days. When the moisture of the substrate in the vessels reached 50% of their maximum retention capacity, the water levels were elevated according to four treatments: , , , and . The model appeared to provide a good fit to the data and showed that the estimates of the maximum amount of accumulated ET were similar for the three treatments with soil water deficit and lower for . The results of the study supported the idea that optimization of the ET of lettuce plants could be achieved through irrigation with deficit, also indicating that the economical use of water was the most efficient way to boost agricultural production. Recommendations for resource managers

• The continued growth of the world population will result in a decrease of quality and availability of water and also an increase in demand for food. Therefore, sustainability will depend on high agricultural productivity with rational use of water.
• Considered the most efficient technology for boosting agricultural productivity, irrigation is also the largest water consumer in the world. With any kind of irrigation in the vegetable production area, the water intake for the plants must be treated with great caution.
• Both a lack or excess in water can decrease plant productivity. The amount of water available in the soil should be enough to maximize production. It is shown that high levels of irrigation are not necessary for this.
• It is important to balance the amount of irrigated water for an optimal level, in order that the production has its the production is maximized and valuable water resources are not wasted.

     

Dynamics of coral reef models in the presence of parrotfish

The decline of coral reefs characterized by macroalgae increase has been a global threat. We consider a slightly modified version of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) model proposed in Blackwood, Hastings, and Mumby [Theor. Ecol. 5 (2012), pp. 105–114] that explicitly considers the role of parrotfish grazing on coral reef dynamics. We perform complete stability, bifurcation, and persistence analysis for this model. If the fishing effort (f) is in between two critical values and , then the system has a unique interior equilibrium, which is stable if and unstable if . If is less (more) than these critical values, then the system has up to two (zero) interior equilibria. Also, we develop a more realistic delay differential equation (DDE) model to incorporate the time delay and treating it as the bifurcation parameter, and we prove that Hopf bifurcation about the interior equilibria could occur at critical time delays, which illustrate the potential importance of the inherent time delay in a coral reef ecosystem. Recommendations for Resource Managers

• One serious threat to coral reefs is overfishing of grazing species, including high level of algal abundance. Fishing alters the entire dynamics of a reef (Hughes, Baird, & Bellwood, 2003), for which the coral cover was predicted to decline rapidly (Mumby, 2006). One major issue is to reverse and develop appropriate management to increase or maintain coral resilience.
• We have provided a detailed local and global analysis of model (Blackwood, Hastings, & Mumby, 2012) and obtained an ecologically meaningful attracting region, for which there is a chance of stable coexistence of coral–algal–fish state.
• The healthy reefs switch to unhealthy state, and the macroalgae–parrotfish state becomes stable as the fishing effort increases through some critical values. Also, for some critical time delays, a switch between healthy and unhealthy reef states occurs through a Hopf bifurcation, which can only appear in the delay differential equation (DDE) model. Eventually, for large enough time delay, oscillations appear and an unhealthy state occurs.

     

UNDERSTANDING MULTIPLE SPECIES ECOSYSTEM DYNAMICS USING A CONSUMER RESOURCE MODEL

Most ecological systems comprise multiple species coexisting and the dynamics of these multiple species can be important for understanding, management, and conservation. One method to study such ecological system dynamics is the use of heterogeneous models. Here we formulate and analyze a multiple species (n patches or groups) consumer resource model. Initial insights are gained by analyzing the special cases and . A threshold consumption number C₀ is used to investigate system stability and hence the long‐term dynamics of the system. It is shown how this threshold consumption number can measure the effects and extent of multiple species coexistence in the system.     

On the relative strengths of fragments of collection

Let be the basic set theory that consists of the axioms of extensionality, emptyset, pair, union, powerset, infinity, transitive containment, Δ₀‐separation and set foundation. This paper studies the relative strength of set theories obtained by adding fragments of the set‐theoretic collection scheme to . We focus on two common parameterisations of the collection: ‐collection, which is the usual collection scheme restricted to ‐formulae, and strong ‐collection, which is equivalent to ‐collection plus ‐separation. The main result of this paper shows that for all ,

1. proves that there exists a transitive model of Zermelo Set Theory plus ‐collection,
2. the theory is ‐conservative over the theory .

It is also shown that (2) holds for when the Axiom of Choice is included in the base theory. The final section indicates how the proofs of (1) and (2) can be modified to obtain analogues of these results for theories obtained by adding fragments of collection to a base theory (Kripke‐Platek Set Theory with Infinity plus ) that does not include the powerset axiom.     

Global existence and bounds for blow‐up time in a class of nonlinear pseudo‐parabolic equations with a memory term

In this article, we consider the initial boundary value problem for a class of nonlinear pseudo‐parabolic equations with a memory term: Under suitable assumptions, we obtain the local and global existence of the solution by Galerkin method. We prove finite‐time blow‐up of the solution for initial data at arbitrary energy level and obtain upper bounds for blow‐up time by using the concavity method. In addition, by means of differential inequality technique, we obtain a lower bound for blow‐up time of the solution if blow‐up occurs.     

An Osgood type regularity criterion for the 2D Oldroyd‐B model

By means of the Littlewood‐Paley decomposition and the div‐curl Theorem by Coifman‐Lions‐Meyer‐Semmes, we prove an Osgood type regularity criterion for the 2D incompressible Oldroyd‐B model, that is, where denotes the Fourier localization operator whose spectrum is supported in the shell {|ξ|≈2^j}.     

Reductions on equivalence relations generated by universal sets

Let X, Y be Polish spaces, , . We say A is universal for Γ provided that each x‐section of A is in Γ and each element of Γ occurs as an x‐section of A. An equivalence relation generated by a set is denoted by , where . The following results are shown:

• (1) If A is a set universal for all nonempty closed subsets of Y, then is a equivalence relation and .
• (2) If A is a set universal for all countable subsets of Y, then is a equivalence relation, and
  • (i) and ;
  • (ii) if , then ;
  • (iii) if every set is Lebesgue measurable or has the Baire property, then .
  • (iv) for , if every set has the Baire property, and E is any equivalence relation, then .

     

Decay rate of unique global solution for a class of 2D tropical climate model

This paper is concerned with a time decay for unique global strong solution of a modified version of the tropical climate model originally derived by Frierson‐Majda‐Pauluis. We prove that as t→∞ and obtain the decay rates with as t→∞, where s ≥ 0.     

Arnold Diffusion,Quantitative Estimates,and Stochastic Behavior in the Three-Body Problem

We consider a class of autonomous Hamiltonian systems subject to small, time-periodic perturbations. When the perturbation parameter is set to zero, the energy of the system is preserved. This is no longer the case when the perturbation parameter is non-zero. We describe a topological method to establish orbits which diffuse in energy for every suitably small perturbation parameter . The method yields quantitative estimates:

• (i) the existence of orbits along which the energy drifts by an amount independent of ε; the time required by such orbits to drift is ;
• (ii) the existence of orbits along which the energy makes chaotic excursions;
• (iii) explicit estimates for the Hausdorff dimension of the set of such chaotic orbits;
• (iv) the existence of orbits along which the time evolution of energy approaches a stopped diffusion process (Brownian motion with drift), as ε tends to 0. For each ε fixed, the set of initial conditions of the orbits that yield the diffusion process has positive Lebesgue measure, and in the limit the measure of these sets approaches 0. Moreover, we can obtain any desired values of the drift and variance for the limiting Brownian motion for appropriate sets of initial conditions.

A key feature of our topological method is that it can be implemented in computer-assisted proofs. We give an application to a concrete model of the planar elliptic restricted three-body problem, on the motion of an infinitesimal body relative to the Neptune-Triton system. © 2021 The Authors. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.     

A Keller‐Segel‐fluid system with singular sensitivity: Generalized solutions

In bounded smooth domains , N ∈ {2,3}, we consider the Keller‐Segel‐Stokes system and prove global existence of generalized solutions if These solutions are such that blow‐up into a persistent Dirac‐type singularity is excluded.     

On the maximum double independence number of Steiner triple systems

The maximum independence number of Steiner triple systems of order $v$ is well‐known. Motivated by questions of access balancing in storage systems, we determine the maximum total cardinality of a pair of disjoint independent sets of Steiner triple systems of order $v$ for all admissible orders.     

Analysis and efficient implementation of alternating direction implicit finite volume method for Riesz space‐fractional diffusion equations in two space dimensions

In this article, we develop a Crank–Nicolson alternating direction implicit finite volume method for time‐dependent Riesz space‐fractional diffusion equation in two space dimensions. Norm‐based stability and convergence analysis are given to show that the developed method is unconditionally stable and of second‐order accuracy both in space and time. Furthermore, we develop a lossless matrix‐free fast conjugate gradient method for the implementation of the numerical scheme, which only has memory requirement and computational complexity per iteration with N being the total number of spatial unknowns. Several numerical experiments are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme for large‐scale modeling and simulations.     

Blow‐up dynamics of L2−critical inhomogeneous fractional nonlinear Schrödinger equation

The purpose of this work is to investigate the blow‐up dynamics of L²?critical focusing inhomogeneous fractional nonlinear Schrödinger equation: with 0<b<1. For this, we establish a new compactness lemma related to the equation. By applying this lemma, we study the dynamical behavior for blow‐up solutions for initial data satisfying , where Q is the ground state solution of our problem.     

There are 3155 nonisomorphic perfect one‐factorizations of K16

We enumerate all nonisomorphic perfect one‐factorizations of $K_{16}$.     

Sequencing partial Steiner triple systems

A partial Steiner triple system of order $n$ is sequenceable if there is a sequence of length $n$ of its distinct points such that no proper segment of the sequence is a union of point‐disjoint blocks. We prove that if a partial Steiner triple system has at most three point‐disjoint blocks, then it is sequenceable.     

Infinite families of 2‐designs from a class of cyclic codes

Combinatorial $t$‐designs have wide applications in coding theory, cryptography, communications, and statistics. It is well known that the supports of all codewords with a fixed weight in a code may give a $t$‐design. In this paper, we first determine the weight distributions of a class of linear codes derived from the dual of some extended cyclic codes. We then obtain infinite families of 2‐designs and explicitly compute their parameters from the supports of all the codewords with a fixed weight in the codes. By a simple counting argument, we obtain exponentially many 2‐designs.     

Infinite families of 3‐designs from APN functions

Combinatorial $t$‐designs have nice applications in coding theory, finite geometries, and several engineering areas. A classical method for constructing $t$‐designs is by the action of a permutation group that is $t$‐transitive or $t$‐homogeneous on a point set. This approach produces $t$‐designs, but may not yield $\left(t+1\right)$‐designs. The objective of this paper is to study how to obtain 3‐designs with 2‐transitive permutation groups. The incidence structure formed by the orbits of a base block under the action of the general affine groups, which are 2‐transitive, is considered. A characterization of such incidence structure to be a 3‐design is presented, and a sufficient condition for the stabilizer of a base block to be trivial is given. With these general results, infinite families of 3‐designs are constructed by employing almost perfect nonlinear functions. Some 3‐designs presented in this paper give rise to self‐dual binary codes or linear codes with optimal or best parameters known. Several conjectures on 3‐designs and binary codes are also presented.     

Fibrations of 2‐crossed modules

In this study, we mainly show that the functor from the category X₂Mod of 2‐crossed modules of groups to the category Groups of groups assigning to each 2‐crossed module the group P, and to each 2‐crossed module morphism the group homomorphism f₀ is a fibration. In addition, we study some related properties.