Courses on mathematical programming are now part of standard teaching programs of universities and institutes. The aim of this book is to introduce students of mathematics, economics, technology and other related subjects to the qualitative theory of mathematical programming in paired vector spaces. Prerequisite for the study of this book is only a basic knowledge of analysis, of elements of functional analysis and linear algebra. The application of elementary ideas of functional analysis is convenient for a more rigorous construction of proofs and for some generalizations of the finite dimensional theory on infinite dimensional Banach-spaces. An important feature of this book is the use of a principle of duality to formulate the theoretical basis of many different concrete programming problems. The main idea of the book is to present relations of duality and to construct a general theoretical basis for different special programming problems.

Since the year 2000, we have witnessed several outstanding results in geometry that have solved long-standing problems such as the Poincare conjecture, the Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture, and the Willmore conjecture. There are still many important and challenging unsolved problems including, among others, the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture on mirror symmetry, the relative Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture in Kahler geometry, the Hopf conjecture, and the Yau conjecture on the first eigenvalue of an embedded minimal hypersurface of the sphere. For the younger generation to approach such problems and obtain the required techniques, it is of the utmost importance to provide them with up-to-date information from leading specialists.The geometry conference for the friendship of China and Japan has achieved this purpose during the past 10 years. Their talks deal with problems at the highest level, often accompanied with solutions and ideas, which extend across various fields in Riemannian geometry, symplectic and contact geometry, and complex geometry.

Oscillation theory was born with Sturm's work in 1836. It has been flourishing for the past fifty years. Nowadays it is a full, self-contained discipline, turning more towards nonlinear and functional differential equations. Oscillation theory flows along two main streams. The first aims to study prop erties which are common to all linear differential equations. The other restricts its area of interest to certain families of equations and studies in maximal details phenomena which characterize only those equations. Among them we find third and fourth order equations, self adjoint equations, etc. Our work belongs to the second type and considers two term linear equations modeled after y(n) + p(x)y = O. More generally, we investigate LnY + p(x)y = 0, where Ln is a disconjugate operator and p(x) has a fixed sign. These equations enjoy a very rich structure and are the natural generalization of the Sturm-Liouville operator. Results about such equations are distributed over hundreds of research papers, many of them are reinvented again and again and the same phenomenon is frequently discussed from various points of view and different definitions of the authors. Our aim is to introduce an order into this plenty and arrange it in a unified and self contained way. The results are readapted and presented in a unified approach. In many cases completely new proofs are given and in no case is the original proof copied verbatim. Many new results are included."

Th e vari a t i on al s p li ne t heo ry w h ic h orig i na t es from th e w ell-kn own p ap er b y J. e . Hollid a y ( 1957) i s t od a y a we ll- deve lo pe d fi eld in a p pr o x - mat i o n t he o ry . T he ge ne ra l d efinition of s p l i nes in t he Hilb er t s pace , - i st ence , uniquen e s s , and ch ar a c t eriz a tion t he o re ms w ere obt ain ed a b o ut 35 ye a r s ago b y M . A t t ei a , P . J . Laur en t , a n d P . M. An selon e , bu t in r e cent y e a r s important n e w r esult s h a v e b e en ob t ain ed in th e a bst ract va r i a t i o n a l s p l i ne theor y .

It is with great pleasure that I accepted invitation of Adnan Ibrahimbegovic to write this preface, for this invitation gave me the privilege to be one of the ?rsttoreadhisbookandallowedmetoonceagainemphasizetheimportance for our discipline of solid mechanics, which is currently under considerable development, to produce the reference books suitable for students and all other researchers and engineers who wish to advance their knowledge on the subject. Thesolidmechanicshascloselyfollowedtheprogressincomputerscienceand is currently undergoing a true revolution where the numerical modelling and simulations are playing the central role. In the industrial environment, the 'virtual' (or the computing science) is present everywhere in the design and engineering procedures. I have a habit of saying that the solid mechanics has become the science of modelling and inthat respectexpanded beyondits t- ditional frontiers. Several facets of current developments have already been treated in di?erent works published within the series 'Studies in mechanics of materials and structures'; for example, modelling heterogeneous materials (Besson et al. ), fracture mechanics (Leblond), computational strategies and namely LATIN method (Ladev' eze), instability problems (NQ Son) and ve- ?cation of ?nite element method (Ladev' eze-Pelle). To these (French) books, one should also add the work of Lemaitre-Chaboche on nonlinear behavior of solid materials and of Batoz on ?nite element method.

This book is on soliton solutions of elliptical partial differential equations arising in quantum field theory, such as vortices, instantons, monopoles, dyons, and cosmic strings. The book presents in-depth description of the problems of current interest, forging a link between mathematical analysis and physics and seeking to stimulate further research in the area. Physically, it touches the major branches of field theory: classical mechanics, special relativity, Maxwell equations, superconductivity, Yang-Mills gauge theory, general relativity, and cosmology. Mathematically, it involves Riemannian geometry, Lie groups and Lie algebras, algebraic topology (characteristic classes and homotropy) and emphasizes modern nonlinear functional analysis. There are many interesting and challenging problems in the area of classical field theory, and while this area has long been of interest to algebraists, geometers, and topologists, it has gradually begun to attract the attention of more analysts. This book written for researchers and graduate students will appeal to high-energy and condensed-matter physicists, mathematicians, and mathematical scientists.

Sofia Kovalevskaya was a brilliant and determined young Russian woman of the 19th century who wanted to become a mathematician and who succeeded, in often difficult circumstances, in becoming arguably the first woman to have a professional university career in the way we understand it today. This memoir, written by a mathematician who specialises in symplectic geometry and integrable systems, is a personal exploration of the life, the writings and the mathematical achievements of a remarkable woman. It emphasises the originality of Kovalevskaya's work and assesses her legacy and reputation as a mathematician and scientist. Her ideas are explained in a way that is accessible to a general audience, with diagrams, marginal notes and commentary to help explain the mathematical concepts and provide context. This fascinating book, which also examines Kovalevskaya's love of literature, will be of interest to historians looking for a treatment of the mathematics, and those doing feminist or gender studies.

This volume is, as may be readily apparent, the fruit of many years' labor in archives and libraries, unearthing rare books, researching Nachlasse, and above all, systematic comparative analysis of fecund sources. The work not only demanded much time in preparation, but was also interrupted by other duties, such as time spent as a guest professor at universities abroad, which of course provided welcome opportunities to present and discuss the work, and in particular, the organizing of the 1994 International Grassmann Conference and the subsequent editing of its proceedings. If it is not possible to be precise about the amount of time spent on this work, it is possible to be precise about the date of its inception. In 1984, during research in the archive of the Ecole polytechnique, my attention was drawn to the way in which the massive rupture that took place in 1811-precipitating the change back to the synthetic method and replacing the limit method by the method of the quantites infiniment petites-significantly altered the teaching of analysis at this first modern institution of higher education, an institution originally founded as a citadel of the analytic method."

Fast Fourier Transform presents an introduction to the principles of the fast Fourier transform. This book covers FFTs, frequency domain filtering, and applications to video and audio signal processing. As fields like communications, speech and image processing, and related areas are rapidly developing, the FFT as one of essential parts in digital signal processing has been widely used. Thus there is a pressing need from instructors and students for a book dealing with the latest FFT topics.Fast Fourier Transform provides thorough and detailed explanation of important or up-to-date FFTs. It also has adopted modern approaches like MATLAB examples and projects for better understanding of diverse FFTs. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an efficient implementation of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). Of all the discrete transforms, DFT is most widely used in digital signal processing. The emphasis of the book is on the foundation of FFTs such as the decimation-in-time FFT, decimation-in-frequency FFT algorithms, integer FFT, prime factor DFT and so on.

This book includes a self-contained theory of inequality problems and their applications to unilateral mechanics. Fundamental theoretical results and related methods of analysis are discussed on various examples and applications in mechanics. The work can be seen as a book of applied nonlinear analysis entirely devoted to the study of inequality problems, i.e. variational inequalities and hemivariational inequalities in mathematical models and their corresponding applications to unilateral mechanics. It contains a systematic investigation of the interplay between theoretical results and concrete problems in mechanics. It is the first textbook including a comprehensive and systematic study of both elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic inequality models, dynamical unilateral systems and unilateral eigenvalues problems. The book is self-contained and it offers, for the first time, the possibility to learn about inequality models and to acquire the essence of the theory in a relatively short time.

Audience: The book is suitable for researchers, and for doctoral and post-doctoral courses.

The analysis of orthogonal polynomials associated with general weights has been a major theme in classical analysis this century. The use of potential theory since the early 1980¿s had a dramatic influence on the development of orthogonal polynomials associated with weights on the real line. For many applications of orthogonal polynomials, for example in approximation theory and numerical analysis, it is not asymptotics but certain bounds that are most important. In this monograph, the authors define and discuss their classes of weights, state several of their results on Christoffel functions, Bernstein inequalities, restricted range inequalities, and record their bounds on the orthogonal polynomials as well as their asymptotic results. This book will be of interest to researchers in approximation theory and potential theory, as well as in some branches of engineering.

This introductory textbook is designed for a one-semester course on queueing theory that does not require a course on stochastic processes as a prerequisite. By integrating the necessary background on stochastic processes with the analysis of models, the work provides a sound foundational introduction to the modeling and analysis of queueing systems for a broad interdisciplinary audience of students in mathematics, statistics, and applied disciplines such as computer science, operations research, and engineering. This edition includes additional topics in methodology and applications. Key features: * An introductory chapter including a historical account of the growth of queueing theory in more than 100 years. * A modeling-based approach with emphasis on identification of models * Rigorous treatment of the foundations of basic models commonly used in applications with appropriate references for advanced topics. * A chapter on matrix-analytic method as an alternative to the traditional methods of analysis of queueing systems. * A comprehensive treatment of statistical inference for queueing systems. * Modeling exercises and review exercises when appropriate. The second edition of An Introduction of Queueing Theory may be used as a textbook by first-year graduate students in fields such as computer science, operations research, industrial and systems engineering, as well as related fields such as manufacturing and communications engineering. Upper-level undergraduate students in mathematics, statistics, and engineering may also use the book in an introductory course on queueing theory. With its rigorous coverage of basic material and extensive bibliography of the queueing literature, the work may also be useful to applied scientists and practitioners as a self-study reference for applications and further research. "...This book has brought a freshness and novelty as it deals mainly with modeling and analysis in applications as well as with statistical inference for queueing problems. With his 40 years of valuable experience in teaching and high level research in this subject area, Professor Bhat has been able to achieve what he aimed: to make [the work] somewhat different in content and approach from other books." - Assam Statistical Review of the first edition

One service mathematics has rendered the 'Ht moi, ...* Ii j'avait so comment en revenir, je ny _ais point aile':' human race. It has put common sense back Jules Verne where it belongs, on the topmost shelf neJll to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non- The series is diwrgent; therefore we may be sense' . * ble to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. H eniside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non- linearities abound. Similarly, alI kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics ...'; 'One service logic has rendered com- puter science ...'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics ...'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d't!tre of this series.

This monograph surveys the theory of quantitative homogenization for second-order linear elliptic systems in divergence form with rapidly oscillating periodic coefficients in a bounded domain. It begins with a review of the classical qualitative homogenization theory, and addresses the problem of convergence rates of solutions. The main body of the monograph investigates various interior and boundary regularity estimates that are uniform in the small parameter e>0. Additional topics include convergence rates for Dirichlet eigenvalues and asymptotic expansions of fundamental solutions, Green functions, and Neumann functions. The monograph is intended for advanced graduate students and researchers in the general areas of analysis and partial differential equations. It provides the reader with a clear and concise exposition of an important and currently active area of quantitative homogenization.

This volume is dedieated to Professor Dragoslav S. Mitrinovic (1908-1995), one of the most accomplished masters in the domain of inequalities. Inequalities are everywhere and play an important and significant role in almost all subjects of mathematies including other areas of sciences. Professor Mitrinovic often used to say: "There are no equalities, even in the human life, the inequalities are always met". Inequalities present a very active and attractive field of research. As Richard Bellman has so elegantly said at the Second International Conference on General Inequalities (Oberwolfach, July 30 - August 5, 1978): "There are three reasons for the study of inequalities: praetieal, theoretieal, and aesthetie. " On the aesthetie aspects he said: "As has been pointed out, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. However, it is generally agreed that eertain pieees of musie, art, or mathematies are beautiful. There is an eleganee to inequalities that makes them very attraetive. " A great progress in inequalities was made by seven Oberwolfach conferences on inequalities with the corresponding seven volumes under the title General Inequal- ities 1 - 7, published by Birkhauser (1978, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1992, and 1997), as weIl as by several other international conferences dedieated to inequali- ties. One of these conferences was held in 1987 at the University of Birmingham, England, under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society, and dedieated to the work of G. H. Hardy, J. E. Littlewood and G.

There has been a flurry of activity in recent years in the loosely defined area of holomorphic spaces. This book discusses the most well-known and widely used spaces of holomorphic functions in the unit ball of Cn. Spaces discussed include the Bergman spaces, the Hardy spaces, the Bloch space, BMOA, the Dirichlet space, the Besov spaces, and the Lipschitz spaces. Most proofs in the book are new and simpler than the existing ones in the literature. The central idea in almost all these proofs is based on integral representations of holomorphic functions and elementary properties of the Bergman kernel, the Bergman metric, and the automorphism group.

The unit ball was chosen as the setting since most results can be achieved there using straightforward formulas without much fuss. The book can be read comfortably by anyone familiar with single variable complex analysis; no prerequisite on several complex variables is required. The author has included exercises at the end of each chapter that vary greatly in the level of difficulty.

We study the boundary behaviour of a conformal map of the unit disk onto an arbitrary simply connected plane domain. A principal aim of the theory is to obtain a one-to-one correspondence between analytic properties of the function and geometrie properties of the domain. In the classical applications of conformal mapping, the domain is bounded by a piecewise smooth curve. In many recent applications however, the domain has a very bad boundary. It may have nowhere a tangent as is the case for Julia sets. Then the conformal map has many unexpected properties, for instance almost all the boundary is mapped onto almost nothing and vice versa. The book is meant for two groups of users. (1) Graduate students and others who, at various levels, want to learn about conformal mapping. Most sections contain exercises to test the understand ing. They tend to be fairly simple and only a few contain new material. Pre requisites are general real and complex analyis including the basic facts about conformal mapping (e.g. AhI66a). (2) Non-experts who want to get an idea of a particular aspect of confor mal mapping in order to find something useful for their work. Most chapters therefore begin with an overview that states some key results avoiding tech nicalities. The book is not meant as an exhaustive survey of conformal mapping. Several important aspects had to be omitted, e.g. numerical methods (see e.g."

This monograph represents a summary of our work in the last two years in applying the method of simulated annealing to the solution of problems that arise in the physical design of VLSI circuits. Our study is experimental in nature, in that we are con cerned with issues such as solution representations, neighborhood structures, cost functions, approximation schemes, and so on, in order to obtain good design results in a reasonable amount of com putation time. We hope that our experiences with the techniques we employed, some of which indeed bear certain similarities for different problems, could be useful as hints and guides for other researchers in applying the method to the solution of other prob lems. Work reported in this monograph was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MIP 87-03273, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation under contract 87-DP- 109, by a grant from the General Electric Company, and by a grant from the Sandia Laboratories."

This volume is dedicated to Tsuyoshi Ando, a- foremost expert in operator theory, matrix theory, complex analysis, and their applications, on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The book opens with his biography and list of publications. It contains a selection of papers covering a broad spectrum of topics ranging from abstract operator theory to various concrete problems and applications. The majority of the papers deal with topics in modern operator theory and its applications. This volume also contains papers on interpolation and completion problems, factorisation problems and problems connected with complex analysis. The book will appeal to a wide audience of pure and applied mathematicians.

The central focus of this book is the control of continuous-time/continuous-space nonlinear systems. Using new techniques that employ the max-plus algebra, the author addresses several classes of nonlinear control problems, including nonlinear optimal control problems and nonlinear robust/H-infinity control and estimation problems. Several numerical techniques are employed, including a max-plus eigenvector approach and an approach that avoids the curse-of-dimensionality.

Well-known dynamic programming arguments show there is a direct relationship between the solution of a control problem and the solution of a corresponding Hamiltona "Jacobia "Bellman (HJB) partial differential equation (PDE). The max-plus-based methods examined in this monograph belong to an entirely new class of numerical methods for the solution of nonlinear control problems and their associated HJB PDEs; they are not equivalent to either of the more commonly used finite element or characteristic approaches. The potential advantages of the max-plus-based approaches lie in the fact that solution operators for nonlinear HJB problems are linear over the max-plus algebra, and this linearity is exploited in the construction of algorithms.

The book will be of interest to applied mathematicians, engineers, and graduate students interested in the control of nonlinear systems through the implementation of recently developed numerical methods. Researchers and practitioners tangentially interested in this area will also find a readable, concise discussion of the subject through a careful selection of specific chapters and sections. Basic knowledge of control theory for systems with dynamics governed bydifferential equations is required.

A comprehensive, basic level introduction to metric spaces and fixed point theory

An Introduction to Metric Spaces and Fixed Point Theory presents a highly self-contained treatment of the subject that is accessible for students and researchers from diverse mathematical backgrounds, including those who may have had little training in mathematics beyond calculus. It provides up-to-date coverage of the properties of metric spaces and Banach spaces, as well as a detailed summary of the primary concepts of set theory.

The authors take a unique approach to the subject by including a number of helpful basic level exercises and using a simple and accessible level of presentation. They provide a highly comprehensive development of what is known in a purely metric context–especially in hyperconvex spaces–and a number of up-to-date Banach space results which are too recent to be found in other books on the subject.

In addition to introductory coverage of metric spaces and Banach spaces, the authors provide detailed analyses of these important topics in the subject:

• Metric contraction principles
• Hyperconvex spaces
• "Normal" structures in metric spaces
• Continuous mappings in Banach spaces
• Metric fixed point theory
• Banach space ultrapowers

For briefer traditional courses in elementary differential equations that science, engineering, and mathematics students take following calculus. The Sixth Edition of this widely adopted book remains the same classic differential equations text it's always been, but has been polished and sharpened to serve both instructors and students even more effectively.Edwards and Penney teach students to first solve those differential equations that have the most frequent and interesting applications. Precise and clear-cut statements of fundamental existence and uniqueness theorems allow understanding of their role in this subject. A strong numerical approach emphasizes that the effective and reliable use of numerical methods often requires preliminary analysis using standard elementary techniques.

The topics of this set of student-oriented books are presented in a discursive style that is readable and easy to follow. Numerous clearly stated, completely worked out examples together with carefully selected problem sets with answers are used to enhance students' understanding and manipulative skill. The goal is to help students feel comfortable and confident in using advanced mathematical tools in junior, senior, and beginning graduate courses.

The book is based on my lecture notes "Infinite dimensional Morse theory and its applications," 1985, Montreal, and one semester of graduate lectures delivered at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1987. Since the aim of this monograph is to give a unified account of the topics in critical point theory, a considerable amount of new materials has been added. Some of them have never been published previously. The book is of interest both to researchers following the development of new results, and to people seeking an introduction into this theory. The main results are designed to be as self-contained as possible. And for the reader's convenience, some preliminary background information has been organized. The following people deserve special thanks for their direct roles in help ing to prepare this book. Prof. L. Nirenberg, who first introduced me to this field ten years ago, when I visited the Courant Institute of Math Sciences. Prof. A. Granas, who invited me to give a series of lectures at SMS, 1983, Montreal, and then the above notes, as the primary version of a part of the manuscript, which were published in the SMS collection. Prof. P. Rabinowitz, who provided much needed encouragement during the academic semester, and invited me to teach a semester graduate course after which the lecture notes became the second version of parts of this book. Professors A. Bahri and H. Brezis who suggested the publication of the book in the Birkhiiuser series."