In this thesis, we make use of numerical schemes in order to solve Fisher’s and FitzHugh-Nagumo equations with specified initial conditions. The thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter 1 gives some literatures on partial differential equations and chapter 2 provides some concepts on finite difference methods, nonstandard finite difference methods and their proper-ties, reaction-diffusion equations and singularly perturbed equations. In chapter 3, we obtain the numerical solution of Fisher’s equation when the coefficient of diffu-sion term is much smaller than the coefficient of reaction (Li et al., 1998). Li et al. (1998) used the Moving Mesh Partial Differential Equation (MMPDE) method to solve a scaled Fisher’s equation with coefficient of reaction being 104 and coefficient of diffusion equal to one and the initial condition consisted of an exponential function. The problem considered is quite challeng-ing and the results obtained by Li et al. (1998) are not accurate due to the fact that MMPDE is based on familiar arc-length or curvature monitor function. Qiu and Sloan (1998) constructed a suitable monitor function called modified monitor function and used it with the Moving Mesh Differential Algebraic Equation (MMDAE) method in order to solve the same problem as Li et al. (1998) and better result were obtained. However, each problem has its own choice of monitor function which makes the choice of the monitor function an open question. We use the Forward in Time Central Space (FTCS) scheme and the Nonstandard Finite Difference (NSFD) to solve the scaled Fisher’s equation and we find that the temporal step size must be very small in order to obtain accurate results and comparable to Qiu and Sloan (1998). This causes the computational time to be long if the domain is large. We use two techniques to modify these two schemes either by introducing artificial viscosity or using the approach of Ruxun et al. (1999). These techniques are efficient and give accurate results with a larger temporal step size. We prove that these four methods are consistent with the partial differential equation and we also obtain the region of stability. Chapter 4 is an improvement and extension of the work from Namjoo and Zibaei (2018) whereby the standard FitzHugh-Nagumo equation with specified initial and boundary conditions is solved. Namjoo and Zibaei (2018) constructed two versions of nonstandard finite difference (NSFD1, NSFD2) and also derived two schemes (one explicit and the other implicit) constructed from the exact solution. However, they presented results using the nonstandard finite difference schemes only. We showed that one of the nonstandard finite difference schemes (NSFD1) has convergence issues and we obtain an improvement for NSFD1 which we call NSFD3. We per-form a stability analysis of the schemes constructed from the exact solution and found that the explicit scheme is not stable for this problem. We study some properties of the five methods (NSFD1, NSFD2, NSFD3, two schemes obtained using the exact solution) such as stability, positivity and boundedness. The performance of the five methods is compared by computing L1, L∞ errors and the rate of convergence for two values of the threshold of Affect effect, γ namely; 0.001 and 0.5 for small and large spatial domains at time, T = 1.0. Tests on rate of convergence are important here as we are dealing with nonlinear partial differential equations and therefore the Lax-Equivalence theorem cannot be used. In chapter 5, we consider FitzHugh-Nagumo equation with the parameter β referred to as in-trinsic growth rate. We chose a numerical experiment which is quite challenging for simulation due to shock-like profiles. We construct four versions of nonstandard finite difference schemes and compared the performance by computing L1, L∞ errors, rate of convergence with respect to time and CPU time at given time, T = 0.5 using three values of the intrinsic growth rate, β namely; β = 0.5, 1.0, 2.0. Chapter 6 highlights the salient features of this work. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / South African DST/NRF SARChI / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / PhD / Unrestricted

Difference equations arise in many fields of mathematics, both as discrete analogs of continuous behavior (analysis, numerical approximations) and as independent models for discrete behavior (population dynamics, economics, biology, ecology, etc.). In recent years, many models - especially in mathematical biology - are based on higher order nonlinear difference equations. As a result, there has been much focus on the existence of periodic solutions of certain classes of these equations and the asymptotic behavior of these periodic solutions. In this dissertation, we study the existence and global attractivity of both periodic and quasiperiodic solutions of two different higher order nonlinear difference equations. Both equations arise in biological applications.

Difference equations are the discrete analogs to differential equations. While the independent variable of differential equations normally is a continuous time variable, t, that of a difference equation is a discrete time variable, n, which measures time in intervals. A feature of difference equations not shared by differential equations is that they can be characterized as recursive functions. Examples of their use include modeling population changes from one season to another, modeling the spread of disease, modeling various business phenomena, discrete simulations applications, or giving rise to the phenomena chaos. The key is that they are discrete, recursive relations. Systems of difference equations are similar in structure to systems of differential equations. Systems of first-order linear difference equations are of the form x(n + 1) = Ax(n) , and systems of first-order linear differential equations are of the form x(t) = Ax(t). In each case A is a 2x2 matrix and x(n +1), x(n), x(t), and x(t) are all vectors of length 2. The methods used in analyzing systems of difference equations are similar to those used in differential equations.Solutions of scalar, second-order linear difference equations are similar to those of scalar, second-order differential equations, but with one major difference: the composition of their general solutions. When the eigenvalues of A, λ1 and λ2, are real and distinct, general solutions of differential equations are of the form x(t) = c1eλ1t +c2eλ2t, while general solutions of difference equations are of form x(n) = 1λn1 + c2λn2. So, on the one hand, while the methods used in examining systems of difference equations are similar to those used for systems of differential equations; on the other hand, their general solutions can exhibit significantly different behavior.Chapter 1 will cover systems of first-order and second-order linear difference equations that are autonomous (all coefficients are constant). Chapter 2 will apply that theory to the local stability analysis of systems of nonlinear difference equations. Finally, Chapter 3 will give some example of the types of models to which systems of difference equations can be applied.

As equações de diferenças desempenham papel fundamental na modelagem de problemas em que o tempo é medido em intervalos discretos, por exemplo, horas, dia, mês, ano. Elas têm aplicações em Matemática, Física, Engenharia, Economia, Biologia e Sociologia. O objetivo desse trabalho é estudar as equações de diferenças lineares de ordem superior, focando aspectos teóricos, métodos de determinação das soluções destas equações e análise da estabilidade de soluções de equações de diferenças de 2a ordem com coeficientes constantes. Exemplos e aplicações ilustram a teoria desenvolvida. É apresentada uma proposta didática relacionada ao tema para ser trabalhada no ensino médio. / The difference equations play a key role in shaping problems in which time is measured in discrete intervals, e.g., hour, day, month, year. They may be applied to Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Economics, Biology and Sociology. The aim of this work is to study the higher-order linear difference equations, focusing on the theoretical aspects, on the methods used to determine the solutions of these equations and also on the analysis of the stability of 2nd-order difference equations with constants coefficients. Examples and applications depict the developed theory. In addition, a didactic proposal related to the topic to be worked on high school is presented.

As equações de diferenças (ou equações discretas) desempenham papel fundamental na modelagem de problemas em que o tempo é medido em intervalos discretos, por exemplo, dia, mês, ano. Elas estão presentes em sistemas físicos, químicos, biológicos, sociais e econômicos. O objetivo desse trabalho é estudar as equações de diferenças de primeira ordem, focando aspectos teóricos, análise do comportamento assintótico das soluções através de técnicas analíticas (teoremas de estabilidade) e técnicas gráficas (diagramas de Cobweb). Também são desenvolvidas algumas aplicações. Além disso, são apresentadas três propostas didáticas relacionadas ao tema para serem trabalhadas no Ensino Médio. / The difference equations (or discrete equations) play a key role in shaping problems in which time is measured at discrete intervals, e.g., day, month, year. They may be applied to physical, chemical, biological, social and economic systems. The aim of this work is to study the first-order difference equations, focusing on theoretical aspects, asymptotic behavior of solutions throughout analytical techniques (stability theorems) and graphical techniques (Cobweb diagrams). Some applications are also shown. Three teaching proposals related to the theme are presented in order to be developed in High School.

Two solution strategies for large, sparse, and structured algebraic systems of equations are considered. The first strategy is to construct efficient preconditioners for iterative solvers. The second is to reduce the sparse algebraic system to a smaller, dense system of equations, which are called the boundary summation equations. The proposed preconditioners perform well when applied to equations that are discretizations of linear first order partial differential equations. Analysis shows that also very simple iterative methods converge in a number of iterations that is independent of the number of unknowns, if our preconditioners are applied to certain scalar model problems. Numerical experiments indicate that this property holds also for more complicated cases, and a flow problem modeled by the nonlinear Euler equations is treated successfully. The reduction process is applicable to a large class of difference equations. There is no approximation involved in the reduction, so the solution of the original algebraic equations is determined exactly if the reduced system is solved exactly. The reduced system is well suited for iterative solution, especially if the original system of equations is a discretization of a first order differential equation. The technique is used for several problems, ranging from scalar model problems to a semi-implicit discretization of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. Both strategies use the concept of fundamental solutions, either of differential or difference operators. An algorithm for computing fundamental solutions of difference operators is also presented.

As equações de diferenças (ou equações discretas) desempenham papel fundamental na modelagem de problemas em que o tempo é medido em intervalos discretos, por exemplo, dia, mês, ano. Elas estão presentes em sistemas físicos, químicos, biológicos, sociais e econômicos. O objetivo desse trabalho é estudar as equações de diferenças de primeira ordem, focando aspectos teóricos, análise do comportamento assintótico das soluções através de técnicas analíticas (teoremas de estabilidade) e técnicas gráficas (diagramas de Cobweb). Também são desenvolvidas algumas aplicações. Além disso, são apresentadas três propostas didáticas relacionadas ao tema para serem trabalhadas no Ensino Médio. / The difference equations (or discrete equations) play a key role in shaping problems in which time is measured at discrete intervals, e.g., day, month, year. They may be applied to physical, chemical, biological, social and economic systems. The aim of this work is to study the first-order difference equations, focusing on theoretical aspects, asymptotic behavior of solutions throughout analytical techniques (stability theorems) and graphical techniques (Cobweb diagrams). Some applications are also shown. Three teaching proposals related to the theme are presented in order to be developed in High School.

As equações de diferenças desempenham papel fundamental na modelagem de problemas em que o tempo é medido em intervalos discretos, por exemplo, horas, dia, mês, ano. Elas têm aplicações em Matemática, Física, Engenharia, Economia, Biologia e Sociologia. O objetivo desse trabalho é estudar as equações de diferenças lineares de ordem superior, focando aspectos teóricos, métodos de determinação das soluções destas equações e análise da estabilidade de soluções de equações de diferenças de 2a ordem com coeficientes constantes. Exemplos e aplicações ilustram a teoria desenvolvida. É apresentada uma proposta didática relacionada ao tema para ser trabalhada no ensino médio. / The difference equations play a key role in shaping problems in which time is measured in discrete intervals, e.g., hour, day, month, year. They may be applied to Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Economics, Biology and Sociology. The aim of this work is to study the higher-order linear difference equations, focusing on the theoretical aspects, on the methods used to determine the solutions of these equations and also on the analysis of the stability of 2nd-order difference equations with constants coefficients. Examples and applications depict the developed theory. In addition, a didactic proposal related to the topic to be worked on high school is presented.

We study a system of spatially discrete FitzHugh-Nagumo equations, which are nonlinear differential-difference equations on an infinite one-dimensional lattice. These equations are used as a model of impulse propagation in nerve cells. We employ McKean's caricature of the cubic as our nonlinearity, which allows us to reduce the nonlinear problem into a linear inhomogeneous problem. We find exact solutions for standing waves, which are steady states of the system. We derive formulas for all 1-pulse solutions. We determine the range of parameter values that allow for the existence of standing waves. We use numerical methods to demonstrate the stability of our solutions and to investigate the relationship between the existence of standing waves and propagation failure of traveling waves.

In this thesis, we study the existence of stationary solutions for two cases. One is for random difference equations. For this, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the stationary solutions in a finite-dimensional Euclidean space Rd by applying the coupling method. The other one is for semi linear stochastic evolution equations. For this case, we follows Mohammed, Zhang and Zhao [25]'s work. In an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space H, we release the Lipschitz constant restriction by using Arzela-Ascoli compactness argument. And we also weaken the globally bounded condition for F by applying forward and backward Gronwall inequality and coupling method.