In this work the modified Green's function technique for an exterior Dirichlet and Neumann problem in linear elasticity is investigated. We introduce a modification of the fundamental solution in order to remove the lack of uniqueness for the solution of the boundary integral equations describing the problems, and to simultaneously minimise their condition number. In view of this procedure the cases of the sphere and perturbations of the sphere are examined. Numerical results that demonstrate the effect of increasing the number of coefficients in the modification on the optimal condition number are also presented.

The allometric hypothesis which relates the shape (y) of biological organs to the size of the plant or animal (x), as a function of the relative growth rates, is ubiquitous in biology. This concept has been especially useful in studies of carcass composition of farm animals, and is the basis for the definition of maintenance requirements in animal nutrition.

When the size variable is random the differential equation describing the relative growth rates of organs becomes a stochastic differential equation, with a solution different from that of the deterministic equation normally used to describe allometry. This is important in studies of carcass composition where animals are slaughtered in different sizes and ages, introducing variance between animals into the size variable.

This paper derives an equation that relates values of the shape variable to the expected values of the size variable at any point. This is the most easily interpreted relationship in many applications of the allometric hypothesis such as the study of the development of carcass composition in domestic animals by serial slaughter. The change in the estimates of the coefficients of the allometric equation found through the usual deterministc equation is demonstrated under additive and multiplicative errors. The inclusion of a factor based on the reciprocal of the size variable to the usual log - log regression equation is shown to produce unbiased estimates of the parameters when the errors can be assumed to be multiplicative.

The consequences of stochastic size variables in the study of carcass composition are discussed.

Ginzburg-Landau type complex partial differential equations are simplified mathematical models for various pattern formation systems in mechanics, physics and chemistry. Most work so far has concentrated on Ginzburg-Landau type equations with one spatial variable (1D). In this paper, the authors study a complex generalised Ginzburg-Landau equation with two spatial variables (2D) and fifth-order and cubic terms containing derivatives. Based on detail analysis, sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of global solutions are obtained.

A study is made of the branching of time periodic solutions of a system of differential equations in R2 in the case of a double zero eigenvalue. It is shown that the solution need not be unique and the period of the solution is large. The stability of these solutions is analysed. Examples are given and generalizations to larger systems are discussed.

Page 242, bottom line.

Page 243, right side of equation (6).

Page 243, right side of equations (8) and (9).

Page 250, line 4 of Section 7.

A perturbation model is used to predict the distance jumped by a long-jumper for a range of tailwinds and headwinds. The zeroth-order approximation is based on gravity being the only force present, the effects of drag and lift only being included in the first-order corrections. The difference in predicted distances produced by the zeroth and first-order approximations is less than 2% for headwinds or tailwinds upto 4 ms−1. Most increases or decreases due to wind are caused by changes in the run-up speed, and consequently the take-off angle and speed.

Recently it was shown that many results in Mathematical Programming involving convex functions actually hold for a wider class of functions, called invex. Here a simple characterization of invexity is given for both constrained and unconstrained problems. The relationship between invexity and other generalizations of convexity is illustrated. Finally, it is shown that invexity can be substituted for convexity in the saddle point problem and in the Slater constraint qualification.

In this paper we consider a simple, nonlinear optimal control problem with sufficient convexity to enable us to formulate its dual problem. Both primal and dual problems will include constraints on both the states and controls. The constraints in one problem may cause the “optimal” dual states to be discontinuous. However, we will look at conditions under which the presence of constraints does not force discontinuities and the optimal states and costates are absolutely continuous.

Various problems related to the propagation of small amplitude long waves on the surface of superfluid helium (helium II), usually called third sound, are studied on the basis of the appropriate governing equations. The two-fluid continuum model due to Landau is considered, with the effects of healing and relaxation incorporated, and viscosity, heat conduction and compressibility terms retained. The helium vapour is treated as a classical (Newtonian) compressible gas and the exact jump conditions across the liquid/vapour interface are employed. These liquid, vapour and jump equations constitute the exact problem although, in an effort to reduce the complexity of the equations, a simplified set of ‘model’ surface boundaiy conditions is also introduced. This full set of equations is non-dimensionalised taking care that all physical parameters are defined using only the undisturbed depth of the layer as the appropriate length scale. The ratio depth/wave-lenght (δ) is then a separate parameter as is the wave amplitude/depth ratio (ɛ). The limit which corresponds to the wave under discussion is then ɛ, δ → 0 with all the other parameters fixed.

A number of analyses are presented, four of which describe various aspects of the linearised theory and two examine the nature of the far-field nonlinear problem. Using the simplified surface boundary conditions we discuss in turn: the wave motion in the absence of healing: the rôle of a second wave speed leading to a wave hierarchy; and the effects of healing. The final linearised problem makes use of the full vapour model, but again the healing terms are ignored. This latter analysis suggests that if the upper boundary of the vapour is sufficiently close to the liquid surface then third sound is suppressed.

The complexity of the equations, particularly when the nonlinear terms are to be examined, is such that the incompressible limit is now taken in the absence of both healing and relaxation. Imposing the physically realistic limiting process (ɛ, δ → 0) we show that the only equation valid in the far-field is the Burgers equation. However, we also demonstrate that allowing the other parameters to be functions of e (which is not physically realisable in practice) it is easy to derive, for example, the Korteweg-de Vries equation.

The present paper presents a ray analysis for a problem of technical importance in fragmentation studies. The problem is that of suddenly punching a circular hole in either isotropic or transversely isotropic plates subjected to a uniaxial tension field. The ray method, which involves only differentiation, integration, and simple algebra, is shown to be particularly useful in clarifying the propagation process of the resulting unloading waves and obtaining the attendant discontinuities of the various quantities involved. Numerical results obtained from the ray analysis are presented in graphical form and compared with those obtained by more elaborate schemes.

The flow caused by a point sink immersed in an otherwise stationary fluid is investigated. Low Froude number solutions are sought, in which the flow is radially symmetric and possesses a stagnation point at the surface, directly above the sink. A small-Froude-number expansion is derived and compared with the results of a numerical solution to the fully nonlinear problem. It is found that solutions of this type exist for all Froude numbers less than some maximum value, at which a secondary circular stagnation line is formed at the surface. The nonlinear solutions are reasonably well predicted by the small-Froude-number expansion, except for Froude numbers close to this maximum.

In this note, the weak duality theorem of symmetric duality in nonlinear programming and some related results are established under weaker (strongly Pseudo-convex/strongly Pseudo-concave) assumptions. These results were obtained by Bazaraa and Goode [1] under (stronger) convex/concave assumptions on the function.

We consider an optimization problem in which the function being minimized is the sum of the integral functional and the full variation of control. For this problem, we prove the existence theorem, a necessary condition in an integral form and a local necessary condition in the case of monotonic controls.

In this paper we propose a P1 finite element preconditioning using the so-called ‘hat-function’, to a collocation scheme constructed by quadratic splines for a 2nd-order separable elliptic operator and we show that the resulting preconditioning system of equations is well conditioned with the condition number independent of the number of unknowns.

Optimal control problems with switching costs arise in a number of applications, and are particularly important when standard control theory gives “chattering controls”. A numerical method is given for finding optimal controls for linear problems (linear dynamics, linear plus switching cost). This is used to develop an algorithm for finding sub-optimal control functions for nonlinear problems with switching costs. Numerical results are presented for an implementation of this method.

We consider a generalisation of the stochastic formulation of smoothing splines, and discuss the smoothness properties of the resulting conditional expectation (generalised smoothing spline), and the sensitivity of the numerical algorithms. One application is to the calculation of smoothing splines with less than the usual order of continuity at the data points.