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Rugose spiraling whitefly (RSW) is one of the major pests which affects the coconut trees. It feeds on the tree by sucking up the water content as well as the essential nutrients from leaves. It also forms sooty mold in leaves due to which the process of photosynthesis is inhibited. Biocontrol of pest is harmless for trees and crops. The experimental results in literature reveal that Pseudomallada astur is a potential predator for this pest. We investigate the dynamics of predator, Pseudomallada astur’s interaction with rugose spiralling whitefly, Aleurodicus rugioperculatus in coconut trees using a mathematical model. In this system of ordinary differential equation, the pest-predator interaction is modeled using Holling type III functional response. The parametric values are calculated from the experimental results and are tabulated. An approximate analytical solution for the system has been derived. The homotopy analysis method proves to be a suitable method for creating solutions that are valid even for moderate to large parameter values, hence we employ the same to solve this nonlinear model. The $\hbar$-curves, which give the admissible region of $\hbar$, are provided to validate the region of convergence. We have derived the approximate solution at fifth order and stopped at this order since we obtain a more approximate solution in this iteration. Numerical simulation is obtained through MATLAB. The analytical results are compared with numerical simulation and are found to be in good agreement. The biological interpretation of figures implies that the use of a predator reduces the whitefly’s growth to a greater extent.

The article deals with the nonlinear boundary-value problem of hydrogen permeability corresponding to the following experiment. A membrane made of the target structural material heated to a sufficiently high temperature serves as the partition in the vacuum chamber. Degassing is performed in advance. A constant pressure of gaseous (molecular) hydrogen is built up at the inlet side. The penetrating flux is determined by mass-spectrometry in the vacuum maintained at the outlet side.

A linear model of dependence on concentration is adopted for the coefficient of dissolved atomic hydrogen diffusion in the bulk. The temperature dependence conforms to the Arrhenius law. The surface processes of dissolution and sorptiondesorption are taken into account in the form of nonlinear dynamic boundary conditions (differential equations for the dynamics of surface concentrations of atomic hydrogen). The characteristic mathematical feature of the boundary-value problem is that concentration time derivatives are included both in the diffusion equation and in the boundary conditions with quadratic nonlinearity. In terms of the general theory of functional differential equations, this leads to the so-called neutral type equations and requires a more complex mathematical apparatus. An iterative computational algorithm of second-(higher- )order accuracy is suggested for solving the corresponding nonlinear boundary-value problem based on explicit-implicit difference schemes. To avoid solving the nonlinear system of equations at every time step, we apply the explicit component of difference scheme to slower sub-processes.

The results of numerical modeling are presented to confirm the fitness of the model to experimental data. The degrees of impact of variations in hydrogen permeability parameters (“derivatives”) on the penetrating flux and the concentration distribution of H atoms through the sample thickness are determined. This knowledge is important, in particular, when designing protective structures against hydrogen embrittlement or membrane technologies for producing high-purity hydrogen. The computational algorithm enables using the model in the analysis of extreme regimes for structural materials (pressure drops, high temperatures, unsteady heating), identifying the limiting factors under specific operating conditions, and saving on costly experiments (especially in deuterium-tritium investigations).

Propagation of nonlinear conformational waves through the boundary dividing the double polynucleotide chain into two different homogeneous regions is investigated. Calculations are made in the frameworks of the DNA model which takes into account the difference in mass of nitrous bases and the difference in distances between sugar-phosphate chain and the centers of mass of bases which are connected with the chain by β-glycoside bond С₁-N. We consider different possible combinations of homogeneous regions placed on the right and on the left from the boundary, and we calculate the changes of the nonlinear wave velocity (v) and size (d) of the nonlinear waves due to overcoming the boundary.

In this paper we study the rotational oscillations of the nitrous bases forming a central pair in a short DNA fragment consisting of three base pairs. A simple mechanical analog of the fragment where the bases are imitated by pendulums and the interactions between pendulums — by springs, has been constructed. We derived Lagrangian of the model system and the nonlinear equations of motions. We found solutions in the homogeneous case when the fragment considered consists of identical base pairs: Adenine-Thymine (AT- pair) or Guanine-Cytosine (GC-pair). The trajectories of the model system in the configuration space were also constructed.

In the paper we construct the model of phase change. Process of hydriding / dehydriding is taken as an example. A single powder particle is considered under the assumption about its symmetry. A ball, a cylinder, and a flat plate are examples of such symmetrical shapes. The model desribes both the "shrinking core"(when the skin of the new phase appears on the surface of the particle) and the "nucleation and growth"(when the skin does not appear till complete vanishing of the old phase) scenarios. The model is the non-classical boundary-value problem with the free boundary and nonlinear Neumann boundary condition. The symmetry assumptions allow to reduce the problem to the single spatial variable. The model was tested on the series of experimental data. We show that the particle shape’s influence on the kinetics is insignificant. We also show that a set of particles of different shapes with size distribution can be approxomated by the single particle of the "average" size and of a simple shape; this justifies using single particle approximation and simple shapes in mathematical models.

Based on modified rescaled range scale computation algorithm, the technique of Hurst exponent and its characteristic time estimation is proposed. The approach of increase the accuracy and simplification automatic Hurst exponent calculation is developed. The Hurst exponent and characteristic time is calculated for power time sets of speech signals with various motor pathologies (aphasias and dysarthrias). Results is statistically analyzed, the correlation between Hurst exponent and characteristic time is estimated.

By method of molecular dynamics investigated the interaction of nonlinear localized modes with bivacancies Pt crystal Pt₃Al. Identified dependences of the lifetime of the nonlinear localized modes from the initial temperature of the crystal model, the initial atom Al deviation from its equilibrium position, as well as the distance to the introduced bivacancy Pt in (111) plane of the crystal.

High-purity hydrogen is required for clean energy and a variety of chemical technology processes. A considerable part of hydrogen is to be obtained by methane conversion. Different alloys, which may be wellsuited for use in gas-separation plants, were investigated by measuring specific hydrogen permeability. One had to estimate the parameters of diffusion and sorption to numerically model the different scenarios and experimental conditions of the material usage (including extreme ones), and identify the limiting factors. This paper presents a nonlinear model of hydrogen permeability in accordance with the specifics of the experiment, the numerical method for solving the boundary-value problem, and the results of parametric identification for the alloy V₈₅Ni₁₅.

In the present paper the application of the kinetic methods to the blood flow problems in elastic vessels is studied. The Lattice Boltzmann (LB) kinetic equation is applied. This model describes the discretized in space and time dynamics of particles traveling in a one-dimensional Cartesian lattice. At the limit of the small times between collisions LB models describe hydrodynamic equations which are equivalent to the Navier – Stokes for compressible if the considered flow is slow (small Mach number). If one formally changes in the resulting hydrodynamic equations the variables corresponding to density and sound wave velocity by luminal area and pulse wave velocity then a well-known 1D equations for the blood flow motion in elastic vessels are obtained for a particular case of constant pulse wave speed.

In reality the pulse wave velocity is a function of luminal area. Here an interesting analogy is observed: the equation of state (which defines sound wave velocity) becomes pressure-area relation. Thus, a generalization of the equation of state is needed. This procedure popular in the modeling of non-ideal gas and is performed using an introduction of a virtual force. This allows to model arbitrary pressure-area dependence in the resulting hemodynamic equations.

Two test case problems are considered. In the first problem a propagation of a sole nonlinear pulse wave is studied in the case of the Laplace pressure-area response. In the second problem the pulse wave dynamics is considered for a vessel bifurcation. The results show good precision in comparison with the data from literature.

In this paper, we discuss the procedure for finding nominal trajectories of the planar five-link bipedal robot with point contact. To this end we use a virtual constraints method that transforms robot’s dynamics to a lowdimensional zero manifold; we also use a nonlinear optimization algorithms to find virtual constraints parameters that minimize robot’s cost of transportation. We analyzed the effect of the degree of Bezier polynomials that approximate the virtual constraints and continuity of the torques on the cost of transportation. Based on numerical results we found that it is sufficient to consider polynomials with degrees between five and six, as further increase in the degree of polynomial results in increased computation time while it does not guarantee reduction of the cost of transportation. Moreover, it was shown that introduction of torque continuity constraints does not lead to significant increase of the objective function and makes the gait more implementable on a real robot.

We propose a two step procedure for finding minimum of the considered optimization problem with objective function in the form of cost of transportation and with high number of constraints. During the first step we solve a feasibility problem: remove cost function (set it to zero) and search for feasible solution in the parameter space. During the second step we introduce the objective function and use the solution found in the first step as initial guess. For the first step we put forward an algorithm for finding initial guess that considerably reduced optimization time of the first step (down to 3–4 seconds) compared to random initialization. Comparison of the objective function of the solutions found during the first and second steps showed that on average during the second step objective function was reduced twofold, even though overall computation time increased significantly.