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The vector-bias model of malaria transmission, recently proposed by Chamchod and Britton, is considered. Nonlinear stability analysis is performed by means of the Lyapunov theory and the LaSalle Invariance Principle. The classical threshold for the basic reproductive number, R(0), is obtained: if R(0)>1, then the disease will spread and persist within its host population. If R(0)<1, then the disease will die out. Then, the model has been extended to incorporate both immigration and disease-induced death of humans. This modification has been shown to strongly affect the system dynamics. In particular, by using the theory of center manifold, the occurrence of a backward bifurcation at R(0)=1 is shown possible. This implies that a stable endemic equilibrium may also exists for R(0)<1. When R(0)>1, the endemic persistence of the disease has been proved to hold also for the extended model. This last result is obtained by means of the geometric approach to global stability., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We study the global behavior of a non-linear susceptible-infectious-removed (SIR)-like epidemic model with a non-bilinear feedback mechanism, which describes the influence of information, and of information-related delays, on a vaccination campaign. We upgrade the stability analysis performed in d'Onofrio et al. [A. d'Onofrio, P. Manfredi, E. Salinelli, Vaccinating behavior, information, and the dynamics of SIR vaccine preventable diseases, Theor. Popul. Biol. 71 (2007) 301) and, at same time, give a special example of application of the geometric method for global stability, due to Li and Muldowney. Numerical investigations are provided to show how the stability properties depend on the interplay between some relevant parameters of the model.

In this paper we consider a diffusive-convective model for the dynamics of a population living in a polluted environment. Threshold results are given concerning the effect of the toxicant on the living population. Some analytic results are proved and numerical experiments give suggestions in more general cases.