In an earlier paper [4], the author showed how Laplace transforms might be assigned to a class of superexponential functions for which the usual defining integral diverges. The present paper considers the case of the function exp(et), which arises in combinatorial contexts and whose Laplace transform may be assigned by means of an extension of techniques described in the previous paper.

Friction problems involving “dry” or “static” friction can be difficult to solve numerically due to the existence of discontinuities in the differential equations appearing in the right-hand side. Conventional methods only give first-order accuracy at best; some methods based on stiff solvers can obtain high order accuracy. The previous method of the author [16] is extended to deal with friction problems involving multiple contact surfaces.

A method is considered for locating oscillating, nonrotating solutions for the parametrically-excited pendulum by inferring that a particular horseshoe exists in the stable and unstable manifolds of the local saddles. In particular, odd-periodic solutions are determined which are difficult to locate by alternative numerical techniques. A pseudo-Anosov braid is also located which implies the existence of a countable infinity of periodic orbits without the horseshoe assumption being necessary.

The inverse spectral method for a general N × N spectral problem for solving nonlinear evolution equations in one spacial and one temporal dimension is extended to include multi-boundary jumps and high-order poles and their explicit representations. It therefore provides a formalism to generate soliton solutions that correspond to higher-order poles of the spectral data.

Equations are derived to approximately describe the propagation of small amplitude surface and interfacial waves across small irregularities in depth in a two-layer fluid. When the irregularities are sinusoidal, Bragg interaction effects between an incident surface wave and the bottom corrugations can lead to a large-amplitude reflected interfacial wave or a large-amplitude transmitted interfacial wave if the incident surface wave is relatively long and the lower layer shallow in comparison with the upper layer.

Sufficient conditions are derived for the relative controllability of nonlinear neutral Volterra integrodifferential systems with distributed delays in the control variables. The results are a generalization of previous results and are obtained by using Schauder's fixed-point theorem.

We prove a continuous version of a relaxation theorem for the nonconvex Darboux problem xlt ε F(t, τ, x, xt, xτ). This result allows us to use Warga's open mapping theorem for deriving necessary conditions in the form of a maximum principle for optimization problems with endpoint constraints. Neither constraint qualification nor regularity assumption is supposed.

In this paper we have introduced extensions νυ(α, x; b) and Γν(α, x; b) of the generalized Gamma functions γ(α x; b) and Γ(α, x; b) considered recently by Chaudhry and Zubair. These extensions are found useful in the representations of the Laplace and K-transforms of a class of functions. We have also defined a generalization of the inverse Gaussian distribution. The cumulative and the reliability functions of the generalized inverse Gaussian distribution are expressed in terms of these functions. Some useful properties of the functions are also discussed.

Withdrawal flow through a point sink on the bottom of a fluid of finite depth is considered. The fluid is at rest at infinity, and a stagnation point is present at the free surface, directly above the point sink. Numerical solutions are computed by means of the method of fundamental solutions, and it is observed that flows of this type are apparently possible for Froude number less than about 1.5. Relationships to previous work are discussed.

The problem of reflection of water waves by a nearly vertical porous wall has been investigated. A perturbational analysis has been applied for the first order correction to be employed to the corresponding vertical wall problem. The Green's function technique has been used to obtain the solution of the boundary value problem at hand, after utilising a mixed Fourier transform together with an idea involving the regularity of the transformed function along the real axis. The cases of fluid of finite as well as infinite depth have been taken into consideration. Particular shapes of the wall have been considered and numerical results are also discussed.