A model for the combustion of a porous medium is considered for an infinite slab. The case of ignition by an initial temperature distribution is considered first. The influence of the initial data and parameters on the solution is inferred from the solution of a related ordinary differential equation. The case of ignition by heating on one side of the slab is then considered in the same manner.

Let u be a random signal with realisations in an infinite-dimensional vector space X and υ an associated observable random signal with realisations in a finite-dimensional subspace Y ⊆ X. We seek a pointwise-best estimate of u using a bounded linear filter on the observed data vector υ. When x is a finite-dimensional Euclidean space and the covariance matrix for υ is nonsingular, it is known that the best estimate û of u is given by a standard matrix expression prescribing a linear mean-square filter. For the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space problem we show that the matrix expression must be replaced by an analogous but more general expression using bounded linear operators. The extension procedure depends directly on the theory of the Bochner integral and on the construction of appropriate HilbertSchmidt operators. An extended example is given.

This paper gives a theorem by which it is possible to derive in an easy way a local approximation theorem and an inverse function theorem. The latter theorems are not new. The main advantage of our paper is in giving a relatively short route to these results.

A number of Kuhn-Tucker type sufficient optimality criteria for a class of variational problems under weaker invexity assumptions are presented. As an application of these optimality results, various Mond-Weir type duality results are proved under a variety of generalised invexity assumptions. These results generalise many well-known duality results of variational problems and also give a dynamic analogue of certain corresponding (static) results relating to duality with generalised invexity in mathematical programming.

Extending earlier duality results for multiobjective programs, this paper defines dual problems for convex and generalised convex multiobjective programs without requiring a constraint qualification. The duals provide multiobjective extensions of the classical duals of Wolfe and Schechter and some of the more recent duals of Mond and Weir.

In the paper we give sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution for a Darboux-Goursat optimization problem with a cost functional depending on the number of switchings of a control and the rapidity of its changes. An application is given to a gas absorption problem.

In this paper, the procedure of the clinical measurement of blood pressure is modelled by the application of a uniform pressure band to a long, homogeneous, isotropic cylinder. The deformations are assumed to be infinitesimal, and transform methods are used to analyse the resulting equations. The inversion of the resulting transforms is carried out numerically. It is shown that, in spite of the fairly crude assumptions of the model, the actual load on the artery may be markedly different from that applied to the surface, leading to inaccuracies in the measured blood pressure. The parameter of importance is shown to be the ratio of pressure band width to arm diameter.

This is a short précis of a presentation on some of the recent advances in the area of extrapolation quadrature; given at David Elliott's 65th birthday conference in Hobart in February 1997.

The flow induced when fluid is withdrawn through a line sink from a layered fluid in a homogeneous, vertically confined porous medium is studied. A nonlinear integral equation is derived and solved numerically. For a given sink location, the shape of the interface can be determined for various values of the flow rate. The results are compared with exact solutions obtained using hodograph methods in a special case. It is found that the cusped and coning shapes of the interface can be accurately obtained for the sink situated at different depths in the fluid and the volume of flow into the sink per unit of time.

We consider here pulsatile flow in circular tubes of varying cross-section with permeable walls. The fluid exchange across the wall is accounted for by prescribing the normal velocity of the fluid at the wall. A perturbation analysis has been carried out for low Reynolds number flows and for small amplitudes of oscillation. It has been observed that the magnitude of the wall shear stress and the pressure drop decrease as the suction velocity increases. Further, as the Reynolds number is increased, the magnitude of wall shear stress increases in the convergent portion and decreases in the divergent portion of a constricted tube.

The complete symmetry group of a forced harmonic oscillator is shown to be Sl(3, R) in the one-dimensional case. Approaching the problem through the Hamiltonian invariants and the method of extended Lie groups, the method used is that of time-dependent point transformations. The result applies equally well to the forced repulsive oscillator and a particle moving under the influence of a coordinate-free force. The generalization to na-dimensional systems is discussed.

Geometric programming is now a well-established branch of optimization theory which has its origin in the analysis of posynomial programs. Geometric programming transforms a mathematical program with nonlinear objective function and nonlinear inequality constraints into a dual problem with nonlinear objective function and linear constraints. Although the dual problem is potentially simpler to solve, there are certain computational difficulties to be overcome. The gradient of the dual objective function is not defined for components whose values are zero. Moreover, certain dual variables may be constrained to be zero (geometric programming degeneracy).

To resolve these problems, a means to find a solution in the relative interior of a set of linear equalities and inequalities is developed. It is then applied to the analysis of dual geometric programs.

The irrotational flow of an incompressible, inviscid fluid over a spiliway is considered. The reciprocal ε of the Froude number is taken to be small and the method of matched asymptotic expansions is applied. The bed of the spillway is horizontal far upstream and makes an angle α with the horizontal far downstream. The inner expansion is valid upstream and over the spillway, but is invalid far downstream. The outer expansion which is valid downstream fails to satisfy the upstream conditions. Unknown constants in the outer expansion are determined by the matching and composite expansions obtained.

In this paper, an inexact Newton's method for nonlinear systems of equations is proposed. The method applies nonmonotone techniques and Newton's as well as inexact Newton's methods can be viewed as special cases of this new method. The method converges globally and quadratically. Some numerical experiments are reported for both standard test problems and an application in the computation of Hopf bifurcation points.

Conditions are fround for the convergence of intepolatory product integration rules and the corresponding companion rules for the class of Riemann-integrable functions. These condtions are used to prove convergence for several classes of rules based on sets of zeros of orthogonal polynomials possibly augmented by one both of the endpoints of the integration interval.

Both Evans et al. and Li et al. have presented preconditioned methods for linear systems to improve the convergence rates of AOR-type iterative schemes. In this paper, we present a new preconditioner. Some comparison theorems on preconditioned iterative methods for solving L-matrix linear systems are presented. Comparison results and a numerical example show that convergence of the preconditioned Gauss-Seidel method is faster than that of the preconditioned AOR iterative method.

We introduce assumptions in input optimisation that simplify the necessary conditions for an optimal input. These assumptions, in the context of nonlinear programming, give rise to conceptually new kinds of constraint qualifications.