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A stable and accurate numerical method to calculate the motion of an interface between two fluids is used to calculate two-dimensional standing water waves. The general method calculates arbitrary time-dependent motion of an interface, possibly including interfacial tension and different density ratios between the fluids. Extremely steep standing waves are determined, significantly steeper than has been previously reported. The peak crest acceleration is used as the determining parameter rather than the wave steepness as the wave steepness is found to have a maximum short of the most extreme wave. Profiles with crest accelerations up to 98% of gravity are calculated (a sequence of raster images of this profile as it evolves in time over one period may be obtained upon application to the authors: e-mail gmercer@spam.ua.oz.au or aroberts@spam.ua.oz.au), and the shape of these extreme standing wave profiles are discussed. The stability of the standing waves is examined and growth rates of the unstable modes are calculated. It is found that all but very steep standing waves are generally stable to harmonic perturbations. However, standing waves are typically unstable to subharmonic perturbations via a sideband-type instability.

Reproduction numbers estimated from disease incidence data can give public health authorities valuable information about the progression and likely size of a disease outbreak. Here, we show that methods for estimating effective reproduction numbers commonly give overestimates early in an outbreak. This is due to many factors including the nature of outbreaks that are used for estimation, incorrectly accounting for imported cases and outbreaks arising in subpopulations with higher transmission rates. Awareness of this bias is necessary to correctly interpret estimates from early disease outbreak data.

BackgroundRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of paediatric morbidity. Mathematical models can be used to characterise annual RSV seasonal epidemics and are a valuable tool to assess the impact of future vaccines.ObjectivesConstruct a mathematical model of seasonal epidemics of RSV and by fitting to a population-level RSV dataset, obtain a better understanding of RSV transmission dynamics.MethodsWe obtained an extensive dataset of weekly RSV testing data in children aged less than 2 years, 2000–2005, for a birth cohort of 245,249 children through linkage of laboratory and birth record datasets. We constructed a seasonally forced compartmental age-structured Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered-Susceptible (SEIRS) mathematical model to fit to the seasonal curves of positive RSV detections using the Nelder-Mead method.ResultsFrom 15,830 specimens, 3,394 were positive for RSV. RSV detections exhibited a distinct biennial seasonal pattern with alternating sized peaks in winter months. Our SEIRS model accurately mimicked the observed data with alternating sized peaks using disease parameter values that remained constant across the 6 years of data. Variations in the duration of immunity and recovery periods were explored. The best fit to the data minimising the residual sum of errors was a model using estimates based on previous models in the literature for the infectious period and a slightly lower estimate for the immunity period.ConclusionsOur age-structured model based on routinely collected population laboratory data accurately captures the observed seasonal epidemic curves. The compartmental SEIRS model, based on several assumptions, now provides a validated base model. Ranges for the disease parameters in the model that could replicate the patterns in the data were identified. Areas for future model developments include fitting climatic variables to the seasonal parameter, allowing parameters to vary according to age and implementing a newborn vaccination program to predict the effect on RSV incidence.

In this paper we investigate the linear stability and properties of the planar travelling non-adiabatic combustion front for the cases of zero and non-zero ambient temperature. The speed of the front is estimated numerically using the shooting and relaxation methods. It is shown that for given parameter values the solution either does not exist or there are two solutions with different values of the front speed, which are referred to as 'fast' and 'slow'. The Evans function approach extended by the compound-matrix method is employed to numerically solve the linear-stability problem for the travelling-wave solution. We demonstrate that the 'slow' branch of the solutions is unstable, whereas the 'fast' branch can be stable or exhibits Hopf or Bogdanov-Takens instability, depending on the parameter values.