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Elephants and algorithms: a review of the current and future role of AI in elephant monitoring.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) present revolutionary opportunities to enhance our understanding of animal behaviour and conservation strategies. Using elephants, a crucial species in Africa and Asia's protected areas, as our focal point, we delve into the role of AI and ML in their conservation. Given the increasing amounts ...

Population age and household structures shape transmission dynamics of emerging infectious diseases: a longitudinal micr...

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

Host population demographics and patterns of host-to-host interactions are important drivers of heterogeneity in infectious disease transmission. To improve our understanding of how population structures and changes therein influence disease transmission dynamics at the individual and population level, we model a dynamic age- and household-structur...

Fundamental bound on epidemic overshoot in the SIR model.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

We derive an exact upper bound on the epidemic overshoot for the Kermack-McKendrick SIR model. This maximal overshoot value of 0.2984 · · · occurs at [Formula: see text]. In considering the utility of the notion of overshoot, a rudimentary analysis of data from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Manaus, Brazil highlights the public health h...

Fur flutter in fluid flow fends off foulers.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

The fouling of submerged surfaces detrimentally alters stratum properties. Inorganic and organic foulers alike attach to and accumulate on surfaces when the complex interaction between numerous variables governing attachment and colonization is favourable. Unlike naturally evolved solutions, industrial methods of repellence carry adverse environmen...

Correction: 'Thermal efficiency extends distance and variety for honey bee foragers: analysis of the energetics of necta...

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

The self-oscillation paradox in the flight motor of Drosophila melanogaster.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

Tiny flying insects, such as Drosophila melanogaster, fly by flapping their wings at frequencies faster than their brains are able to process. To do so, they rely on self-oscillation: dynamic instability, leading to emergent oscillation, arising from muscle stretch-activation. Many questions concerning this vital natural instability remain open. Do...

Cortex-driven cytoplasmic flows in elongated cells: fluid mechanics and application to nuclear transport in Drosophila e...

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

The Drosophila melanogaster embryo, an elongated multi-nucleated cell, is a classical model system for eukaryotic development and morphogenesis. Recent work has shown that bulk cytoplasmic flows, driven by cortical contractions along the walls of the embryo, enable the uniform spreading of nuclei along the anterior-posterior axis necessary for prop...

Spatio-temporal surveillance and early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a retrospective analysis.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been characterized by the repeated emergence of genetically distinct virus variants of increased transmissibility and immune evasion compared to pre-existing lineages. In many countries, their containment required the intervention of public health authorities and the imposition of control measures. While the primary role...

Rapid flapping and fibre-reinforced membrane wings are key to high-performance bat flight.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

Bats fly using significantly different wing motions from other fliers, stemming from the complex interplay of their membrane wings' motion and structural properties. Biological studies show that many bats fly at Strouhal numbers, the ratio of flapping to flight speed, 50-150% above the range typically associated with optimal locomotion. We use high...

A geometric framework for reaction enumeration in computational nucleic acid devices.

Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface

Cascades of DNA strand displacement reactions enable the design of potentially large circuits with complex behaviour. Computational modelling of such systems is desirable to enable rapid design and analysis. In previous work, the expressive power of graph theory was used to enumerate reactions implementing strand displacement across a wide range of...