We consider a processor-sharing storage allocation model, which has m primary holding spaces and infinitely many secondary ones, and a single processor servicing the stored items. All of the spaces are numbered and ordered. An arriving customer takes the lowest available space. Dynamic storage allocation and the fragmentation of computer memory are well-known applications of this model. We define the traffic intensity ρ to be λ/μ, where λ is the customers' arrival rate and μ is the service rate of the processor. We study the joint probability distribution of the numbers of occupied primary and secondary spaces. We study the problem in two asymptotic limits: (1) m → ∞ with a fixed ρ < 1, and (2) ρ ↑ 1, m → ∞ with m(1-ρ) = O(1). The asymptotics yield insight into how many secondary spaces tend to be needed, and into the sample paths leading to the occupation of the two types of spaces. We show that the asymptotics lead to accurate numerical approximations.

We consider a solution of a mono-component oil and wax. The latter is dissolved in the oil if the temperature is above the so-called cloud point (which depends on the concentration) and it segregates in the form of solid crystals if temperature is below the cloud point. As the solid fraction of wax increases, the diffusivity of liquid wax in the oil decreases (gelification), eventually vanishing. We study a one-dimensional model where temperature is initially above the cloud point and then it is lowered to induce diffusion and gelification. We formulate the relevant mathematical problem (a free boundary problem), studying its well-posedness and showing some qualitative results.

In this paper, we derive and analyse mean-field models for the dynamics of groups of individuals undergoing a random walk. The random motion of individuals is only influenced by the perceived densities of the different groups present as well as the available space. All individuals have the tendency to stay within their own group and avoid the others. These interactions lead to the formation of aggregates in case of a single species and to segregation in the case of multiple species. We derive two different mean-field models, which are based on these interactions and weigh local and non-local effects differently. We discuss existence and stability properties of solutions for both models and illustrate the rich dynamics with numerical simulations.

We consider periodic solutions which bifurcate from equilibria in simple population models which incorporate a state-dependent time delay of the discrete kind. The delay is a function of the current size of the population. Solutions near equilibria are constructed using perturbation methods to determine the sub/supercriticality of the bifurcation and hence their stability. The stability of the bifurcating solutions depends on the qualitative form of the delay function. This is in contrast to the stability of an equilibrium, which is determined purely by the actual value of this function at the equilibrium.

A free boundary problem arising in a model for inviscid, incompressible shallow water entry at small deadrise angles is derived and analysed. The relationship between this novel free boundary problem and the well-known viscous squeeze film problem is described. An inverse method is used to construct explicit solutions for certain body profiles and to find criteria under which the splash sheet can ‘split’. A variational inequality formulation, conservation of certain generalized moments and the Schwarz function formulation are introduced.

The Stefan problem is coupled with a spatially inhomogeneous and anisotropic Gibbs–Thomson condition at the phase boundary. We show the long-time existence of weak solutions for the non-degenerate Stefan problem with a spatially inhomogeneous and anisotropic Gibbs–Thomson law and a conditional existence result for the corresponding degenerate Stefan problem. To this end, approximate solutions are constructed by means of variational problems for energy functionals with spatially inhomogeneous and anisotropic interfacial energy. By passing to the limit, we establish solutions of the Stefan problem with a spatially inhomogeneous and anisotropic Gibbs–Thomson law in a weak generalised BV-formulation.

We discuss the fourth-order thin film equation with a stable second-order diffusion term, in the context of a standard free-boundary problem with zero height, zero contact angle and zero-flux conditions imposed at an interface. For the first critical exponent where N ≥ 1 is the space dimension, there are continuous sets (branches) of source-type very singular self-similar solutions of the form For p ≠ p0, the set of very singular self-similar solutions is shown to be finite and consists of a countable family of branches (in the parameter p) of similarity profiles that originate at a sequence of critical exponents {pl, l ≥ 0}. At p = pl, these branches appear via a non-linear bifurcation mechanism from a countable set of second kind similarity solutions of the pure thin film equation Such solutions are detected by a combination of linear and non-linear ‘Hermitian spectral theory’, which allows the application of an analytical n-branching approach. In order to connect with the Cauchy problem in Part I, we identify the cauchy problem solutions as suitable ‘limits’ of the free-boundary problem solutions.

In a recent paper, a new three-parameter class of Abel type equations, so-called AIR, all of whose members can be mapped into Riccati equations, is shown. Most of the Abel equations with solution presented in the literature belong to the AIR class. Three canonical forms were shown to generate this class, according to the roots of a cubic. In this paper, a connection between those canonical forms and the differential equations for the hypergeometric functions $_2{\rm F}_1$, $_1{\rm F}_1$ and $_0{\rm F}_1$ is unveiled. This connection provides a closed form $_p{\rm F}_q$ solution for all Abel equations of the AIR class.

We study a scale of two-component composite structures of equal proportions with infinitely many microlevels. The structures are obtained recursively and we find that their effective conductivities are power means of the local conductivities.

The motivation for this work arises from the study of the processes involved in the manufacturing of a class of composite materials, in particular, those that are obtained by injecting a resin through a porous preform. A one-dimensional model that describes the non-isothermal filtration of an incompressible fluid is presented, and it also includes the possibility of curing, i.e. the polymerization of the penetrating resin. It comes out a fully coupled system consisting of the heat diffusion equation, Darcy's law and an equation related to the kinetics of the chemical reaction. The system is regarded as a free boundary problem for the heat equation with non-constant discontinuous coefficients. Its weak formulation is studied and the local existence of solutions is proved.

We consider a storage allocation model with a finite number of storage spaces. There are m primary spaces that are ranked {1,2,. . .,m} and R secondary spaces ranked {m + 1, m + 2,. . .,m + R}. Items arrive according to a Poisson process, occupy a space for a random exponentially distributed time, and an arriving item takes the lowest ranked available space. Letting N1 and N2 denote the numbers of occupied primary and secondary spaces, we study the joint distribution Prob[N1 = k, N2 = r] in the steady state. The joint process (N1, N2) behaves as a random walk in a lattice rectangle. We shall obtain explicit expressions for the distribution of (N1, N2), as well as the marginal distribution of N2. We also give some numerical studies to illustrate the qualitative behaviors of the distribution(s). The main contribution is to study the effects of a finite secondary capacity R, whereas previous studies had R = ∞.

Many elastodynamic solutions exist for wave interactions with defects upon or within an elastic half space bounded above by a vacuum. The aim of this paper is to significantly widen the scope of these solutions by showing that they can be directly utilized, when the vacuum is replaced by a fluid, to find the leading order acoustic (or elastic) responses in the light fluid-loading limit. Using the procedure developed here one can take virtually any elastodynamic solution and use it to generate the leading-order solution for a fluid-loaded elastic solid.

In this paper the problem of finding the impermeable parachute of optimum shape in a subsonic gas flow has been solved. The effects of compressibility have been taken into account out by making use of ideas of Chaplygin's approximate method. A formula for the drag coefficient has been deduced and by comparison with exact solutions it has been demonstrated that for bluff bodies its related error is no more than 0.5% for any Mach number at infinity less than unity. On the basis of the formula a functional for the drag force has been constructed and its global maximum has been found analytically. It has been shown that the optimum shape is slightly affected by compressibility.

A mathematical model is presented for the washing of a band, or tow, of fibres which is pulled past a submerged obstacle. A lubrication flow between the obstacle and the tow is coupled to a flow through the tow, which is modelled as a porous medium. Coupled first-order ordinary differential equations for the fluid pressure and volume flux are solved numerically and the results are analysed. The washing of the tow induced by the reversal of the viscous boundary layers lying above and below the tow is discussed briefly. In Part 2, the model is extending to allow for fibre bending. The numerical solution of the resulting differential equation shows that at a critical value of the tow porosity, the tow touches the obstacle. An existence proof for a family of touching solutions is obtained. Using the existence of these solutions, a method for constructing a solution with a rubbing region, where the gap width is zero, is outlined. The numerical solutions for these solutions are also given.

We introduce a multi-species chemotaxis type system admitting an arbitrarily large number of population species, all of which are attracted versus repelled by a single chemical substance. The production versus destruction rates of the chemotactic substance by the species is described by a probability measure. For such a model, we investigate the variational structures, in particular, we prove the existence of Lyapunov functionals, we establish duality properties as well as a logarithmic Hardy–Littlewood–Sobolev type inequality for the associated free energy. The latter inequality provides the optimal critical value for the conserved total population mass.

For the Cauchy problem for the nonlinear infiltration equation $$\left\{\begin{array}{@{}l@{\qquad}l} u_{t}=\frac{1}{m}(u^{m})_{xx},&x\in{\mathbb{R}}, t>0,m\geq{}1,\\[3pt] u|_{t=0}=u_{0}(x),&x\in{\mathbb{R}}, \end{array} \right.$$ we use its linear solution $u(x,t,1)$ to approach the nonlinear solution $u(x,t,m)$, and obtain the explicit estimate: $$\int_{0}^{T}\int_{\mathbb{R}}|u(x,t,m)-u(x,t,1)|^{2}\,dx\,dt{} \leq{}(C^{\ast}(m-1))^{2},$$ where $C^{\ast}=O(T^{\gamma})$ and $\gamma=\frac{1+m-\alpha}{2(1+m)}$ for any $0<\alpha<1$.

The behaviour of two-dimensional finite blobs of conducting viscous fluid in a Hele-Shaw cell subject to an electric field is considered. The time-dependent free boundary problem is studied both analytically using the Schwarz function of the free boundary and numerically using a boundary integral method. Various problems are considered, including (i) the behaviour of an initially circular blob of conducting fluid subject to an electric point charge located arbitrarily within the blob, (ii) the delay in cusp formation on the free boundary in sink-driven flow due to a strategically placed electric charge and (iii) the stability of exact steady solutions having both hydrodynamic and electric forcing.

The aim of this paper is to describe a technique based on matched asymptotic expansions that allows us to derive the variation of the stress intensity factors in a homogeneous isotropic elastic medium under plane strain deformation. The case of antiplane shearing is also considered.

A two-dimensional computational study is performed on the texturing of fibre-filled nematic liquid crystals using the Landau-de Gennes model describing the spatio-temporal evolution of the second moment of the orientation distribution function or quadrupolar tensor order parameter. The investigation is performed on a consistent computational domain comprising a square array of four circular fibres embedded within a unit square containing a uniaxial low molar mass calamitic liquid crystal. Interest is focused on the role of temperature, boundary conditions and their effect on the nucleation and evolution of defect structures. Thermal effects are characterised below and above the temperature at which the nematic state is stable. Simulations in the stable nematic state serves as a scenario for investigating the effect of imposing different external boundary conditions, namely periodic and Dirichlet; the former describes a square lattice array of fibres embedded in a nematic liquid crystal, and the latterdescribes a four-fibre arrangement in an aligned nematic material. In each case, the influence of temperature is characterised, with defect structures forming and either remaining or splitting into lower strength defects. For fibre lattices, splitting transitions of defects at the centre of the domain occur at a critical temperature, but for the four-fibre arrangement, defect transitions occur continuously over a temperature range. The discontinuous defect splitting transition in fibre arrays occurs at lower temperatures than the continuous defect transformation in the four-fibre arrangement. At sufficiently low temperatures, the four-fibre arrangement and the fibre lattice give the same texture consisting of two disclination lines close to each fibre. The evolution of the texture with respect to temperature can be characterised as a change from single-fibre mode at low temperature to a collective mode with a centre-located heterogeneity at higher temperature. At higher temperatures, in the stable isotropic state, it is shown that surface-induced ordering arising from the fibre/liquid crystal interaction propagates into the bulk forming thin disclination lattices around the four-fibre configuration.

Within the online media universe, there are many underlying communities. These may be defined, for example, through politics, location, health, occupation, extracurricular interests or retail habits. Government departments, charities and commercial organisations can benefit greatly from insights about the structure of these communities; the move to customer-centred practices requires knowledge of the customer base. Motivated by this issue, we address the fundamental question of whether a sub-network looks like a collection of individuals who have effectively been picked at random from the whole, or instead forms a distinctive community with a new, discernible structure. In the former case, to spread a message to the intended user base it may be best to use traditional broadcast media (TV, billboard), whereas in the latter case a more targeted approach could be more effective. In this work, we therefore formalise a concept of testing for sub-structure and apply it to social interaction data. First, we develop a statistical test to determine whether a given sub-network (induced sub-graph) is likely to have been generated by sampling nodes from the full network uniformly at random. This tackles an interesting inverse alternative to the more widely studied “forward” problem. We then apply the test to a Twitter reciprocated mentions network where a range of brand name based sub-networks are created via tweet content. We correlate the computed results against the independent views of 16 digital marketing professionals. We conclude that there is great potential for social media based analytics to quantify, compare and interpret online brand allegiances systematically, in real time and at large scale.