Diffusion and growth phenomena abound in the real world surrounding us.
Someexamples: growth of the world's population, growth rates of humans,
public interest in news events, growth and decline of central city
populations, pollution of rivers, adoption of agricultural innovations,
and spreading of epidemics and migration of insects. These and numerous
other phenomena are illustrations of typical growth and diffusion
problems confronted in many branches of the physical, biological and
social sciences as well as in various areas of agriculture, business,
education, engineering medicine and public health. The book presents a
large number of mathematical models to provide frameworks forthe
analysis and display of many of these. The models developed and
utilizedcommence with relatively simple exponential, logistic and normal
distribution functions. Considerable attention is given to time
dependent growth coefficients and carrying capacities. The topics of
discrete and distributed time delays, spatial-temporal diffusion and
diffusion with reaction are examined. Throughout the book there are a
great many numerical examples. In addition and most importantly, there
are more than 50 in-depth "illustrations" of the application of a
particular framework ormodel based on real world problems. These
examples provide the reader with an appreciation of the intrinsic nature
of the phenomena involved. They address mainly readers from the
physical, biological, and social sciences, as the only mathematical
background assumed is elementary calculus. Methods are developed as
required, and the reader can thus acquire useful tools for planning,
analyzing, designing, and evaluating studies of growth transfer and
diffusion phenomena. The book draws on the author's own hands-on
experience in problems of environmental diffusion and dispersion, as
well as in technology transfer and innovation diffusion.
