COMPARISON OF VARIOUS FRACTIONAL BASIS FUNCTIONS FOR SOLVING FRACTIONAL-ORDER LOGISTIC POPULATION MODEL

Three types of orthogonal polynomials (Chebyshev, Chelyshkov, and Legendre) are employed as basis functions in a collocation scheme to solve a nonlinear cubic initial value problem arising in population growth models. The method reduces the given problem to a set of algebraic equations consist of polynomial coefficients. Our main goal is to present a comparative study of these polynomials and to asses their performances and accuracies applied to the logistic population equation. Numerical applications are given to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the method. Comparisons are also made between the present method based on different basis functions and other existing approximation algorithms.

Null controllability for a degenerate population model in divergence form via Carleman estimates

In this paper we consider a degenerate population equation in divergence form depending on time, on age and on space and we prove a related null controllability result via Carleman estimates.

A general model of hormesis in biological systems and its application to pest management

Hormesis, a phenomenon whereby exposure to high levels of stressors is inhibitory but low (mild, sublethal and subtoxic) doses are stimulatory, challenges decision-making in the management of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, nutrition and ecotoxicology. In the latter, increasing amounts of a pesticide may lead to upsurges rather than declines of pests, ecological paradoxes that are difficult to predict. Using a novel re-formulation of the Ricker population equation, we show how interactions between intervention strengths and dose timings, dose–response functions and intrinsic factors can model such paradoxes and hormesis. A model with three critical parameters revealed hormetic biphasic dose and dose timing responses, either in a J-shape or an inverted U-shape, yielding a homeostatic change or a catastrophic shift and hormetic effects in many parameter regions. Such effects were enhanced by repeated pulses of low-level stimulations within one generation at different dose timings, thereby reducing threshold levels, maximum responses and inhibition. The model provides insights into the complex dynamics of such systems and a methodology for improved experimental design and analysis, with wide-reaching implications for understanding hormetic effects in ecology and in medical and veterinary treatment decision-making. We hypothesized that the dynamics of a discrete generation pest control system can be determined by various three-parameter spaces, some of which reveal the conditions for occurrence of hormesis, and confirmed this by fitting our model to both hormetic data from the literature and to a non-hormetic dataset on pesticidal control of mirid bugs in cotton.

Existence and Regularity for Boundary Cauchy Problems with Infinite Delay

The aim of this work is to investigate a class of boundary Cauchy problems with infinite delay. We give some sufficient conditions ensuring the uniqueness, existence, and regularity of solutions. For illustration, we apply the result to an age dependent population equation, which covers some special cases considered in some recent papers.