In this paper we consider an infinite horizon, continuous time model of economic growth. We prove two theorems; one on the existence of optimal paths of capital accumulation and the other on the dependence of the set of optimal paths on the initial capital stock (sensitivity analysis). In the existence result the underlying technology set is nonconvex and only its “investment’ slices are convex. The proof is direct, without any use of necessary conditions. In the sensitivity analysis, the technology set is convex and so we have that the value function is concave. Then having that, we show that the set of optimal paths is an upper semicaontinuous multifunction of the initial capital stock.

Under suitable hypotheses on the function f, the two constrained minimization problems:

are well known each to be dual to the other. This symmetric duality result is now extended to a class of nonsmooth problems, assuming some convexity hypotheses. The first problem is generalized to:

in which T and S are convex cones, S* is the dual cone of S, and ∂y denotes the subdifferential with respect to y. The usual method of proof uses second derivatives, which are no longer available. Therefore a different method is used, where a nonsmooth problem is approximated by a sequence of smooth problems. This duality result confirms a conjecture by Chandra, which had previously been proved only in special cases.

We investigate the behaviour of a reaction described by Michaelis-Menten kinetics in an immobilised enzyme reactor (IER). The IER is treated as a well-stirred flow reactor, with the restriction that bounded and unbounded enzyme species are constrained to remain within the reaction vessel. Our aim is to identify the best operating conditions for the reactor.

The cases in which an iminobilised enzyme reactor is used to either reduce pollutant emissions or to synthesise a product are considered. For the former we deduce that the reactor should be operated using low flow rates whereas for the latter high flow rates are optimal. It is also shown that periodic behaviour is impossible.

A point on a tree network space is said to be a distant point if it maximises its minimum weighted distance from any of its vertices. The median minimises the sum of its weighted distances from the vertices. In this paper two constrained problems are discussed. The first problem is to maximise the minimum of the weighted distances from the vertices subject to an upper bound value of the sum of the weighted distances from the vertices, while the second problem is to minimise the sum of the weighted distances subject to a lower bound value of the minimum weighted distance to any of its vertices. It is shown that these two constrained problems are duals of each other in a well defined sense.

This paper establishes some maximum and comparison principles relative to lower and upper solutions of nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations with impulsive effects. These principles are applied to obtain some sufficient conditions for the global asymptotic stability of a unique positive equilibrium in a reaction-diffusion equation modeling the growth of a single-species population subject to abrupt changes of certain important system parameters.

CAD systems have traditionally catered for architectural and mechanical engineering designs which are somewhat constrained in scope. Problems concerning other types of design such as art design, industrial design or sculpting, where creativity and aesthetic factors play an important role, are not adequately addressed. These types of design require much more flexibility in both geometric modelling capability and user-machine interaction. This paper first gives a brief overview of recent work which deals with creative activities, and analyses important issues that need to be addressed in object representations for 3D creative activities. We then discuss a scheme to categorise and represent aesthetic factors in geometric modelling.

The authors consider in this paper the inverse problem of finding a pair of functions (u, p) such that

where F, f, E, s, αi, βi, γi, gi, i = 1, 2, are given functions.

The existence and uniqueness of a smooth global solution pair (u, p) which depends continuously upon the data are demonstrated under certain assumptions on the data.

In this work we shall study the existence of extremal solutions for an impulsive problem with functional-boundary conditions and weak regularity assumptions, not only on the right-hand side of the equation and on the functions that define the boundary conditions, but also on the impulse functions, which will be required to be nondecreasing, but not continuous as well, as is customary in the literature.

Moreover, in order to prove one of our results we shall study a general impulsive linearproblem, giving a complete characterisation of resonance for it.

This note gives a necessary and sufficient condition that a compressible, isotropic elastic material should admit non-trivial states of finite anti-plane shear.

The existence and selection of steady-state travelling planar fronts in a set of typical phase field equations for solidification are investigated by a combination of numerical and analytical methods. Such solutions are conjectured to exist only for a unique velocity of propagation and to be unique except for translation. This behaviour is in marked contrast to the situation in conventional Stefan models in which travelling fronts exist for all velocities. The value of the steady-state velocity depends upon the various material parameters which enter the phase field equations. Numerical and, in certain tractable limits, analytical results for the velocity are presented for a number of physical situations.

The problem of obtaining explicit and exact solutions of soliton equations of the AKNS class is considered. The technique developed relies on the construction of the wave functions which are solutions of the associated AKNS system; that is, a linear eigenvalue problem in the form of a system of first order partial differential equations. The method of characteristics is used and Bäcklund transformations are employed to generate new solutions from the old. Thus, families of new solutions for the KdV equation, the mKdV equation, the sine-Gordon equation and the nonlinear Schrôdinger equation are obtained, avoiding the solution of some Riccati equations. Our results in the KdV case include those obtained recently by other investigators.

In this article we study the dilation equation f(x) = ∑h ch f (2x − h) in ℒ2(R) using a wavelet approach. We see that the structure of Multiresolution Analysis adapts very well to the study of scaling functions. The equation is reduced to an equation in a subspace of ℒ2(R) of much lower resolution. This simpler equation is then “wavelet transformed” to obtain a discrete dilation equation. In particular we study the case of compactly supported solutions and we see that conditions for the existence of solutions are given by convergence of infinite products of matrices. These matrices are of the type obtained by Daubechies, and, when the analyzing wavelet is the Haar wavelet, they are exactly the same.

We study a special type of infinite product, called an infinite product of Cardano type, and we obtain its Taylor series. We prove that Hadamard's factorization of bandlimited signals is given by an infinite product of Cardano type, and apply our results to obtain the Taylor series for bandlimited signals.

A new method is described which allows an exact solution in a closed form to the following non-axisymmetric mixed boundary-value problem for a charged sphere: arbitrary potential values are given at the surface of a spherical segment while an arbitrary charge distribution is prescribed on the rest of the sphere. The method is founded on a new integral representation of the kernel of the governing integral equation. Several examples are considered. All the results are expressed in elementary functions. Some further applications of the method are discussed. No similar result seems to have been published previously.

This paper studies degenerate forms of Maxwell's equations which arise from approximations suggested by geophysical modelling problems. The approximations reduce Maxwell's equations to degenerate elliptic/parabolic ones. Here we consider the questions of existence, uniqueness and regularity of solutions for these equations and address the problem of showing that the solutions of the degenerate equations do approximate those of the genuine Maxwell equations.

The speed of convergence of stationary iterative techniques for solving simultaneous linear equations may be increased by using a method similar to conjugate gradients but which does not require the stationary iterative technique to be symmetrisable. The method of refinement is to find linear combinations of iterates from a stationary technique which minimise a quadratic form. This basic method may be used in several ways to construct refined versions of the simple technique. In particular, quadratic forms of much less than full rank may be used. It is suggested that the method is likely to be competitive with other techniques when the number of linear equations is very large and little is known about the properties of the system of equations. A refined version of the Gauss-Seidel technique was found to converge satisfactorily for two large systems of equations arising in the estimation of genetic merit of dairy cattle.