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Patchy or divided populations can be important to infectious disease transmission. We first show that Lloyd’s mean crowding index, an index of patchiness from ecology, appears as a term in simple deterministic epidemic models of the SIR type. Using these models, we demonstrate that the rate of movement between patches is crucial for epidemic dynamics. In particular, there is a relationship between epidemic final size and epidemic duration in patchy habitats: controlling inter-patch movement will reduce epidemic duration, but also final size. This suggests that a strategy of quarantining infected areas during the initial phases of a virulent epidemic might reduce epidemic duration, but leave the population vulnerable to future epidemics by inhibiting the development of herd immunity.
Endemic infectious diseases constantly circulate in human populations, with prevalence fluctuating about a (theoretical and unobserved) time-independent equilibrium. For diseases for which acquired immunity is not lifelong, the classic susceptible–infectious–recovered–susceptible (SIRS) model provides a framework within which to consider temporal trends in the observed epidemiology. However, in some cases (notably pertussis), sustained multiannual fluctuations are observed, whereas the SIRS model is characterized by damped oscillatory dynamics for all biologically meaningful choices of model parameters. We show that a model that allows for “boosting” of immunity may naturally give rise to undamped oscillatory behaviour for biologically realistic parameter choices. The life expectancy of the population is critical in determining the characteristic dynamics of the system. For life expectancies up to approximately $50$ years, we find that, even with boosting, damped oscillatory dynamics persist. For increasing life expectancy, the system may sustain oscillatory dynamics, or even exhibit bistable behaviour, in which both stable point attractor and limit cycle dynamics may coexist. Our results suggest that rising life expectancy may induce changes in the characteristic dynamics of infections for which immunity is not lifelong, with potential implications for disease control strategies.
Advances in nonlinear dynamics, especially modern multifractal cascade models, allow us to investigate the weather and climate at unprecedented levels of accuracy. Using new stochastic modeling and data analysis techniques, this book provides an overview of the nonclassical, multifractal statistics. By generalizing the classical turbulence laws, emergent higher-level laws of atmospheric dynamics are obtained and are empirically validated over time-scales of seconds to decades and length-scales of millimetres to the size of the planet. In generalizing the notion of scale, atmospheric complexity is reduced to a manageable scale-invariant hierarchy of processes, thus providing a new perspective for modeling and understanding the atmosphere. This synthesis of state-of-the-art data and nonlinear dynamics is systematically compared with other analyses and global circulation model outputs. This is an important resource for atmospheric science researchers new to multifractal theory and is also valuable for graduate students in atmospheric dynamics and physics, meteorology, oceanography and climatology.
Beginning with one of the most remarkable ecological collapses of recent time, that of the passenger pigeon, Hadlock goes on to survey collapse processes across the entire spectrum of the natural and man-made world. He takes us through extreme weather events, technological disasters, evolutionary processes, crashing markets and companies, the chaotic nature of Earth's orbit, revolutionary political change, the spread and elimination of disease, and many other fascinating cases. His key thesis is that one or more of six fundamental dynamics consistently show up across this wide range. These six sources of collapse can all be best described and investigated using fundamental mathematical concepts. They include low probability events, group dynamics, evolutionary games, instability, nonlinearity, and network effects, all of which are explained in readily understandable terms. Almost the entirety of the book can be understood by readers with a minimal mathematical background, but even professional mathematicians are likely to get rich insights from the range of examples. The author tells his story with a warmly personal tone and weaves in many of his own experiences, whether from his consulting career of racing around the world trying to head off industrial disasters to his story of watching collapse after collapse in the evolution of an ecosystem on his New Hampshire farm.
Based on course notes from over twenty years of teaching engineering and physical sciences at Michigan Technological University, Tomas Co's engineering mathematics textbook is rich with examples, applications and exercises. Professor Co uses analytical approaches to solve smaller problems to provide mathematical insight and understanding, and numerical methods for large and complex problems. The book emphasises applying matrices with strong attention to matrix structure and computational issues such as sparsity and efficiency. Chapters on vector calculus and integral theorems are used to build coordinate-free physical models with special emphasis on orthogonal co-ordinates. Chapters on ODEs and PDEs cover both analytical and numerical approaches. Topics on analytical solutions include similarity transform methods, direct formulas for series solutions, bifurcation analysis, Lagrange–Charpit formulas, shocks/rarefaction and others. Topics on numerical methods include stability analysis, DAEs, high-order finite-difference formulas, Delaunay meshes, and others. MATLAB® implementations of the methods and concepts are fully integrated.