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Coconut plantation plays a vital role in the economy and source of living for millions of farmers around the world, especially in tropical regions. The rugose spiraling whitefly is a highly destructive pest causing severe damage to coconut trees and significantly reducing their productivity. The aim of this paper is to develop and analyze a mathematical model that captures the dynamics of whitefly and to highlight the benefits of using biological control to mitigate the impact of pest damaging coconut palms. To be more realistic, a stage-structured model with maturation delay and lag in the implementation of the control measures has been considered in the model. We identify the equilibrium points of the system and perform a stability analysis to assess the system behavior. The numerical simulation of the proposed system is also reported. The findings reveal that introducing the population of parasitoids can effectively reduce the rugose spiraling whitefly population presenting a promising strategy for mitigating the pest’s impact.

Mathematical model of a new icebreaker device is worked out using the theory of small elastic deformations and numerically approved.

The article examines the impact of non-market actions of participants in oligopolistic markets on the market structure. The following actions of one of the market participants aimed at increasing its market share are analyzed: 1) price manipulation; 2) blocking investments of stronger oligopolists; 3) destruction of produced products and capacities of competitors. Linear dynamic games with a quadratic criterion are used to model the strategies of oligopolists. The expediency of their use is due to the possibility of both an adequate description of the evolution of markets and the implementation of two mutually complementary approaches to determining the strategies of oligopolists: 1) based on the representation of models in the state space and the solution of generalized Riccati equations; 2) based on the application of operational calculus methods (in the frequency domain) which owns the visibility necessary for economic analysis.

The article shows the equivalence of approaches to solving the problem with maximin criteria of oligopolists in the state space and in the frequency domain. The results of calculations are considered in relation to a duopoly, with indicators close to one of the duopolies in the microelectronic industry of the world. The second duopolist is less effective from the standpoint of costs, though more mobile. Its goal is to increase its market share by implementing the non-market methods listed above.

Calculations carried out with help of the game model, made it possible to construct dependencies that characterize the relationship between the relative increase in production volumes over a 25-year period of weak and strong duopolists under price manipulation. Constructed dependencies show that an increase in the price for the accepted linear demand function leads to a very small increase in the production of a strong duopolist, but, simultaneously, to a significant increase in this indicator for a weak one.

Calculations carried out with use of the other variants of the model, show that blocking investments, as well as destroying the products of a strong duopolist, leads to more significant increase in the production of marketable products for a weak duopolist than to a decrease in this indicator for a strong one.