Composite spiral waves in discrete-time systems.

Spiral waves are a type of typical pattern in open reaction-diffusion systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. The study of spiral waves has attracted great interest because of its nonlinear characteristics and extensive applications. However, the study of spiral waves has been confined to continuous-time systems, while spiral waves in discrete-time systems have been rarely reported. In recent years, discrete-time models have been widely studied in ecology because of their appropriateness to systems with nonoverlapping generations and other factors. Therefore, spiral waves in discrete-time systems need to be studied. Here, we investigated a novel type of spiral wave called a composite spiral wave in a discrete-time predator-pest model, and we revealed the formation mechanism. To explain the observed phenomena, we defined and quantified a move state effect of multiperiod states caused by the coupling of adjacent stable multiperiod orbits, which is strictly consistent with the numerical results. The other move state effect is caused by an unstable focus, which is the state of the local points at the spiral center. The combined effect of these two influences can lead to rich dynamical behaviors of spiral waves, and the specific structure of the composite spiral waves is the result of the competition of the two effects in opposite directions. Our findings shed light on the dynamics of spiral waves in discrete-time systems, and they may guide the prediction and control of pests in deciduous forests.

Modelling and analysis of HFMD with the effects of vaccination, contaminated environments and quarantine in mainland China.

Currently, hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is widespread in mainland China and seriously endangers the health of infants and young children. Recently in mainland China, preventing the spread of the disease has entailed vaccination, isolation measures, and virus clean-up in the contaminated environment. However, quantifying and evaluating the efficacy of these strategies on HFMD remains challenging, especially because relatively little research analyses the impact of EV71 vaccination for this disease. To assess the effectiveness of these strategies, we propose a new mathematical model that considers vaccination, contaminated environment, and quarantine simultaneously. Unlike the previous studies for HFMD, in which the basic reproduction number R0 is the only threshold to decide whether the disease is extinct or not, our results show that another threshold value is needed:R̂0 < 1 (R0 <= R̂0 < 1) such that disease is extinct; i.e., the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable. Moreover, numerical experiments show that our model may have positive equilibriums even if the basic reproduction number R0 is less than 1. In designing a new algorithm based on a BP network to estimate the unknown parameters, this proposed model is put forward to individually fit the HFMD reported cases annually in mainland China from 2015 to 2017. At last, the sensitivity analyses and numerical experiments show that increasing the rate of virus clearance, the vaccinated rate of infants and young children, and the quarantined rate of infectious individuals can effectively control the spread of HFMD in mainland China. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to eliminate the disease. Specifically, our results show that the current vaccine measures starting in 2016 have reduced the total number of patients in 2016 and 2017 by 17% and 22%, respectively.