Mathematical modelling has been used to support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in countries around the world including Australia and New Zealand. Both these countries have followed similar pandemic response strategies, using a combination of strict border measures and community interventions to minimize infection rates until high vaccine coverage was achieved. This required a different set of modelling tools to those used in countries that experienced much higher levels of prevalence throughout the pandemic.

In this article, we provide an overview of some of the mathematical modelling and data analytics work that has helped to inform the policy response to the pandemic in Australia and New Zealand. This is a reflection on our experiences working at the modelling–policy interface and the impact this has had on the pandemic response. We outline the various types of model outputs, from short-term forecasts to longer-term scenario models, that have been used in different contexts. We discuss issues relating to communication between mathematical modellers and stakeholders such as health officials and policymakers. We conclude with some future challenges and opportunities in this area.

We consider a local projection stabilization based on biorthogonal systems for convection–diffusion–reaction differential equations with mixed boundary conditions. The approach based on biorthogonal systems is numerically more efficient than other existing approaches to obtain a uniform approximation for convection dominated problems. We prove optimal a priori error estimates for the proposed numerical technique. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the performance of the approach.

Two simple mathematical models of advection and diffusion of hydrogen within the retina are discussed. The work is motivated by the hydrogen clearance technique, which is used to estimate blood flow in the retina. The first model assumes that the retina consists of three, well-mixed layers with different thickness, and the second is a two-dimensional model consisting of three regions that represent the layers in the retina. Diffusion between the layers and leakage through the outer edges are considered. Solutions to the governing equations are obtained by employing Fourier series and finite difference methods for the two models, respectively. The effect of important parameters on the hydrogen concentration is examined and discussed. The results contribute to understanding the dispersal of hydrogen in the retina and in particular the effect of flow in the vascular retina. It is shown that the predominant features of the process are captured by the simpler model.

We study a fractional-order delayed predator-prey model with Holling–Tanner-type functional response. Mainly, by choosing the delay time $\tau $ as the bifurcation parameter, we show that Hopf bifurcation can occur as the delay time $\tau $ passes some critical values. The local stability of a positive equilibrium and the existence of the Hopf bifurcations are established, and numerical simulations for justifying the theoretical analysis are also presented.

Recent higher-order explicit Runge–Kutta methods are compared with the classic fourth-order (RK4) method in long-term integration of both energy-conserving and lossy systems. By comparing quantity of function evaluations against accuracy for systems with and without known solutions, optimal methods are proposed. For a conservative system, we consider positional accuracy for Newtonian systems of two or three bodies and total angular momentum for a simplified Solar System model, over moderate astronomical timescales (tens of millions of years). For a nonconservative system, we investigate a relativistic two-body problem with gravitational wave emission. We find that methods of tenth and twelfth order consistently outperform lower-order methods for the systems considered here.

Exact solutions are constructed for a class of nonlinear hyperbolic reaction-diffusion equations in two-space dimensions. Reduction of variables and subsequent solutions follow from a special nonclassical symmetry that uncovers a conditionally integrable system, equivalent to the linear Helmholtz equation. The hyperbolicity is commonly associated with a speed limit due to a delay, $\tau $, between gradients and fluxes. With lethal boundary conditions on a circular domain wherein a species population exhibits logistic growth of Fisher–KPP type with equal time lag, the critical domain size for avoidance of extinction does not depend on $\tau $. A diminishing exact solution within a circular domain is also constructed, when the reaction represents a weak Allee effect of Huxley type. For a combustion reaction of Arrhenius type, the only known exact solution that is finite but unbounded is extended to allow for a positive $\tau $.

This paper investigates spatial data on the unit sphere. Traditionally, isotropic Gaussian random fields are considered as the underlying mathematical model of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. We discuss the generalized multifractional Brownian motion and its pointwise Hölder exponent on the sphere. The multifractional approach is used to investigate the CMB data from the Planck mission. These data consist of CMB radiation measurements at narrow angles of the sky sphere. The results obtained suggest that the estimated Hölder exponents for different CMB regions do change from location to location. Therefore, the CMB temperature intensities are multifractional. The methodology developed is used to suggest two approaches for detecting regions with anomalies in the cleaned CMB maps.

We explain some key challenges when dealing with a single- or multi-objective optimization problem in practice. To overcome these challenges, we present a mathematical program that optimizes the Nash social welfare function. We refer to this mathematical program as the Nash social welfare program (NSWP). An interesting property of the NSWP is that it can be constructed for any single- or multi-objective optimization problem. We show that solving the NSWP could result in more desirable solutions in practice than its single- or multi-objective counterpart. We also discuss several promising approaches that could be employed to solve the NSWP in practice.

Three typical elastic problems, including beam bending, truss extension and compression, and two-rings collision are simulated with smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) using Lagrangian and Eulerian algorithms. A contact-force model for elastic collisions and equation of state for pressure arising in colliding elastic bodies are also analytically derived. Numerical validations, on using the corresponding theoretical models, are carried out for the beam bending, truss extension and compression simulations. Numerical instabilities caused by largely deformed particle configurations in finite/large elastic deformations are analysed. The numerical experiments show that the algorithms handle small deformations well, but only the Lagrangian algorithm can handle large elastic deformations. The numerical results obtained from the Lagrangian algorithm also show a good agreement with the theoretical values.

We develop a new analytical solution of a three-dimensional atmospheric pollutant dispersion. The main idea is to subdivide vertically the planetary boundary layer into sub-layers, where the wind speed and eddy diffusivity assume average values for each sub-layer. Basically, the model is assessed and validated using data obtained from the Copenhagen diffusion and Prairie Grass experiments. Our findings show that there is a good agreement between the predicted and observed crosswind-integrated concentrations. Moreover, the calculated statistical indices are within the range of acceptable model performance.

We consider the pricing of discretely sampled volatility swaps under a modified Heston model, whose risk-neutralized volatility process contains a stochastic long-run variance level. We derive an analytical forward characteristic function under this model, which has never been presented in the literature before. Based on this, we further obtain an analytical pricing formula for volatility swaps which can guarantee the computational accuracy and efficiency. We also demonstrate the significant impact of the introduced stochastic long-run variance level on volatility swap prices with synthetic as well as calibrated parameters.

When faced with the task of solving hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs), high order, strong stability-preserving (SSP) time integration methods are often needed to ensure preservation of the nonlinear strong stability properties of spatial discretizations. Among such methods, SSP second derivative time-stepping schemes have been recently introduced and used for evolving hyperbolic PDEs. In previous works, coupling of forward Euler and a second derivative formulation led to sufficient conditions for a second derivative general linear method (SGLM), which preserve the strong stability properties of spatial discretizations. However, for such methods, the types of spatial discretizations that can be used are limited. In this paper, we use a formulation based on forward Euler and Taylor series conditions to extend the SSP SGLM framework. We investigate the construction of SSP second derivative diagonally implicit multistage integration methods (SDIMSIMs) as a subclass of SGLMs with order $p=r=s$ and stage order $q=p,p-1$ up to order eight, where r is the number of external stages and s is the number of internal stages of the method. Proposed methods are examined on some one-dimensional linear and nonlinear systems to verify their theoretical order, and show potential of these schemes in preserving some nonlinear stability properties such as positivity and total variation.

In this paper, the pricing of equity warrants under a class of fractional Brownian motion models is investigated numerically. By establishing a new nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) system governing the price in terms of the observable stock price, we solve the pricing system effectively by a robust implicit-explicit numerical method. This is fundamentally different from the documented methods, which first solve the price with respect to the firm value analytically, by assuming that the volatility of the firm is constant, and then compute the price with respect to the stock price and estimate the firm volatility numerically. It is shown that the proposed method is stable in the maximum-norm sense. Furthermore, a sharp theoretical error estimate for the current method is provided, which is also verified numerically. Numerical examples suggest that the current method is efficient and can produce results that are, overall, closer to real market prices than other existing approaches. A great advantage of the current method is that it can be extended easily to price equity warrants under other complicated models.

This paper looks at adapting the method of Medvedev and Scaillet for pricing short-term American options to evaluate short-term convertible bonds. However unlike their method, we provide explicit formulae for the coefficients of our series solution. This means that we do not need to solve complicated recursive systems, and can efficiently provide fast solutions. We also compare the method with numerical solutions, and find that it performs extremely well, giving accurate bond prices as well as accurate optimal conversion prices.

We consider two classes of irreducible Markovian arrival processes specified by the matrices C and D: the Markov-modulated Poisson process (MMPP) and the Markov-switched Poisson process (MSPP). The former exhibits a diagonal matrix D while the latter exhibits a diagonal matrix C. For these two classes we consider the following four statements: (I) the counting process is overdispersed; (II) the hazard rate of the event-stationary interarrival time is nonincreasing; (III) the squared coefficient of variation of the event-stationary process is greater than or equal to one; (IV) there is a stochastic order showing that the time-stationary interarrival time dominates the event-stationary interarrival time. For general MSPPs and order two MMPPs, we show that (I)–(IV) hold. Then for general MMPPs, it is easy to establish (I), while (II) is shown to be false by a counter-example. For general simple point processes, (III) follows from (IV). For MMPPs, we conjecture that (IV) and thus (III) hold. We also carry out some numerical experiments that fail to disprove this conjecture. Importantly, modelling folklore has often treated MMPPs as “bursty”, and implicitly assumed that (III) holds. However, to the best of our knowledge, proving this is still an open problem.

We derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation for the propagation of the three-dimensional broader bandwidth gravity-capillary waves including the effect of depth-uniform current. In this derivation, the restriction of narrow bandwidth constraint is extended, so that this equation will be more appropriate for application to a realistic sea wave spectrum. From this equation, an instability condition is obtained and then instability regions in the perturbed wavenumber space for a uniform wave train are drawn, which are in good agreement with the exact numerical results. As it turns out, the corrections to the stability properties that occur at the fourth-order term arise from an interaction between the mean flow and the frequency-dispersion term. Since the frequency-dispersion term, in the absence of depth-uniform current, for pure capillary waves is of opposite sign for pure gravity waves, so too are the corrections to the instability properties.

We consider fully three-dimensional time-dependent outflow from a source into a surrounding fluid of different density. The source is distributed over a sphere of finite radius. The nonlinear problem is formulated using a spectral approach in which two streamfunctions and the density are represented as a Fourier-type series with time-dependent coefficients that must be calculated. Linearized theories are also discussed and an approximate stability condition for early stages in the outflow is derived. Nonlinear solutions are presented and different outflow shapes adopted by the fluid interface are investigated.

The paper deals with the construction of explicit Nordsieck second derivative general linear methods with s stages of order p with $p=s$ and high stage order $q=p$ with inherent Runge–Kutta or quadratic stability properties. Satisfying the order and stage order conditions together with inherent stability conditions leads to methods with some free parameters, which will be used to obtain methods with a large region of absolute stability. Examples of methods with r external stages and $p=q=s=r-1$ up to order five are given, and numerical experiments in a fixed stepsize environment are presented.

We consider a generalization of the well-known nonlinear Nicholson blowflies model with stochastic perturbations. Stability in probability of the positive equilibrium of the considered equation is studied. Two types of stability conditions: delay-dependent and delay-independent conditions are obtained, using the method of Lyapunov functionals and the method of linear matrix inequalities. The obtained results are illustrated by numerical simulations by means of some examples. The results are new, and complement the existing ones.