Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and Its Applications – serie

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the mathematical theory of nonlinear problems described by singular elliptic equations. There are carefully analyzed logistic type equations with boundary blow-up solutions and generalized Lane-Emden-Fowler equations or Gierer-Meinhardt systems with singular nonlinearity in anisotropic media. These nonlinear problems appear as mathematical models in various branches of Physics, Mechanics, Genetics, Economics, Engineering, and they are also relevant in Quantum Physics and Differential Geometry. One of the main purposes of this volume is to deduce decay rates for general classes of solutions in terms of estimates of particular problems. Much of the material included in this volume is devoted to the asymptotic analysis of solutions and to the qualitative study of related bifurcation problems. Numerical approximations illustrate many abstract results of this volume. A systematic description of the most relevant singular phenomena described in these lecture notes includes existence (or nonexistence) of solutions, unicity or multiplicity properties, bifurcation and asymptotic analysis, and optimal regularity. The method of presentation should appeal to readers with different backgrounds in functional analysis and nonlinear partial differential equations. All chapters include detailed heuristic arguments providing thorough motivation of the study developed later on in the text, in relationship with concrete processes arising in applied sciences. The book includes an extensive bibliography and a rich index, thus allowing for quick orientation among the vast collection of literature on the mathematical theory of nonlinear singular phenomena

This is an extensively revised version of the very successfulCombinatorial Designs: Construction Methods which was published in 1990 by Ellis Horwood and is now out of print. A new chapter on league schedules is now included, dealing with round robin tournaments, venue sequences, and carry over effects. Balanced tournament designs, double schedules, and bridge tournament designs are also covered, and there is some material on whist tournaments.The presentation is clear and reable. Throughout, the historical development of the material is emphasized. There are plenty of examples and exercises giving detailed constructions, and a copious bibliography is provided. The author is internationally respected as an expositor, and this book provides an excellent text and reference book for researchers.

The geometry of curves has fascinated mathematicians for 2500 years, and the theory has become highly abstract. Recently links have been made with the subject of error correction, leading to the creation of geometric Goppa codes, a new and important area of coding theory. This book is an updated and extended version of the last part of the successful book Error-Correcting Codes and Finite Fields. It provides an elementary introduction to Goppa codes, and includes many examples, calculations, and applications. The book is in two parts with an emphasis on motivation, and applications of the theory take precedence over proofs of theorems. The formal theory is, however, provided in the second part of the book, and several of the concepts and proofs have been simplified without sacrificing rigour.

The matching problem is one of the central problems in graph theory as well as in the theory of algorithms and their applications. This book will provide the reader with a comprehensive and straightforward introduction to the basic methods of designing efficient parallel algorithms for graph matching problems. The text is written for students at the beginning graduate level. The exposition is mostly self-contained and example-driven. Prerequisites have been kept to a minimum by including relevant background material. The book contains full details of several new techniques and should also be of interest to research workers in computer science, operations research, discrete mathematics, and electrical engineering. The main theoretical tools are combined into three independent chapters, devoted to combinatorial tools, probabilistic tools, and algebraic tools. One of the main goals of the book is to bring together these three approaches and highlight how their combination works in the development of efficient parallel algorithms. The reader will be provided with a simple and transparent presentation of a variety of interesting algorithms, including many examples and illustrations. The combination of different approaches makes the matching problem and its applications an attractive and fascinating subject. It is hoped that the book represents a meeting point of interesting algorithmic techniques and opens up new algebraic and geometric areas. Marek Karpinski is Chair Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bonn. Wojciech Rytter is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Warsaw and at the University of Liverpool.

This book proposes new notions of coherent geometric structure. Fractal patterns have emerged in many contexts, but what exactly is a "pattern" and what is not? How can one make precise the structures lying within objects and the relationships between them? The foundations laid herein provide a fresh approach to a familiar field. From this emerges a wide range of open problems, large and small, and a variety of examples with diverse connections to other parts of mathematics.One of the main features of the present text is that the basic framework is completely new. This makes it easier for people to get into the field. There are many open problems, with plenty of opportunities that are likely to be close at hand, particularly as concerns the exploration of examples. On the other hand the general framework is quite broad and provides the possibility for future discoveries of some magnitude.Fractual geometries can arise in many different ways mathematically, but there is not so much general language for making comparisons. This book provides some tools for doing this, and a place where researchers in different areas can find common ground and basic information.

The object of homogenization theory is the description of the macroscopic properties of structures with fine microstructure, covering a wide range of applications that run from the study of properties of composites to optimal design. The structures under consideration may model cellular elastic materials, fibred materials, stratified or porous media, or materials with many holes or cracks. In mathematical terms, this study can be translated in the asymptotic analysis of fast-oscillating differential equations or integral functionals. The book presents an introduction to the mathematical theory of homogenization of nonlinear integral functionals, with particular regard to those general results that do not rely on smoothness or convexity assumptions. Homogenization results and appropriate descriptive formulas are given for periodic and almost- periodic functionals. The applications include the asymptotic behaviour of oscillating energies describing cellular hyperelastic materials, porous media, materials with stiff and soft inclusions, fibered media, homogenization of HamiltonJacobi equations and Riemannian metrics, materials with multiple scales of microstructure and with multi-dimensional structure. The book includes a specifically designed, self-contained and up-to-date introduction to the relevant results of the direct methods of Gamma-convergence and of the theory of weak lower semicontinuous integral functionals depending on vector-valued functions. The book is based on various courses taught at the advanced graduate level. Prerequisites are a basic knowledge of Sobolev spaces, standard functional analysis and measure theory. The presentation is completed by several examples and exercises.

This book provides a unique and unusual introduction to graph theory by one of the founding fathers, and will be of interest to all researchers in the subject. It is not intended as a comprehensive treatise, but rather as an account of those parts of the theory that have been of special interest to the author. Professor Tutte details his experience in the area, and provides a fascinating insight into how he was led to his theorems and the proofs he used. As well as being of historical interest it provides a useful starting point for research, with references to further suggested books as well as the original papers.The book starts by detailing the first problems worked on by Professor Tutte and his colleagues during his days as an undergraduate member of the Trinity Mathematical Society in Cambridge. It covers subjects such as comnbinatorial problems in chess, the algebraicization of graph theory, reconstruction of graphs, and the chromatic eigenvalues. In each case fascinating historical and biographical information about the author's research is provided.

This book presents an upper level text on semilinear evolutionary partial differential equations aimed at the graduate and postgraduate level. Cazenave and Haraux present in a self-contained way, the typical basic properties of solutions to semi-linear evolutionary partial differential equations, with special emphasis on global properties. The main objective of this book is to provide a didactic approach to the subject , and the main readership will be graduate students in mathematical analysis, as well as professional applied mathematicians.

Radio channel assignment has attracted considerable interest over many years, spanning disciplines that include radio engineering, electrical engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science and economics. Over the last few years, there has been a rapid growth in the demand for wireless communications services, which has in turn created a need for Governments and industry to develop sound theory, methods, and computational tools for the effective and efficient management of the spectrum. This book contains a collection of contributions from those working in the field, which explore the various aspects of current research in channel radio assignment. The collection includes several chapters concerned with developing a sound theoretical framework for channel assignment. Other chapters are concerned with developing state-of-the-art computational algorithms for solving channel assignment problems, and two chapters discuss the regulatory aspects of spectrum management and its history. Also included are the modelling and efficient solution of network design problems, which are becoming increasingly important in wireless networks. Finally a chapter bridging the regulatory and mathematical issues describes the benefit of economic modelling in radio spectrum management.This book illustrates a range of mathematical and computational tools, including graph colouring, graph labelling, linear and nonlinear optimization, meta-heuristics, constraint satisfaction and multidisciplinary optimization. It is aimed at practising engineers, university academics with an interest in the area, and Government agencies responsible for the management of the radio spectrum. This title is the latest in the Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and its Applications, which aims to publish short books aimed at first-year graduates and academics in mathematics and related subjects. The Series focuses on future directions of research with emphasis on attractive genuine applications of the subject, particularly topics in the natural sciences.

For the last 20-30 years, interest among mathematicians and physicists in infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems and Hamiltonian partial differential equations has been growing strongly, and many papers and a number of books have been written on integrable Hamiltonian PDEs. During the last decade though, the interest has shifted steadily towards non-integrable Hamiltonian PDEs. Here, not algebra but analysis and symplectic geometry are the appropriate analysing tools. The present book is the first one to use this approach to Hamiltonian PDEs and will be an invaluable source of information for postgraduate mathematics and physics students and researchers.

The aim of this book is to offer a direct and self-contained access to some of the new or recent results in fluid mechanics. It gives an authoritative account on the theory of the Euler equations describing a perfect incompressible fluid. First of all, the text derives the Euler equations from a variational principle, and recalls the relations on vorticity and pressure. Various weak formulations are proposed. The book then presents the tools of analysis necessary for their study: Littlewood-Paley theory, action of Fourier multipliers on L spaces, and partial differential calculus. These techniques are then used to prove various recent results concerning vortext patches or sheets, essentially the persistence of the smoothness of the boundary of a vortex patch, even if that smoothness allows singular points, as well as the existence of weak solutions of the vorticity sheet type. The text also presents properties of microlocal (analytic or Gevrey) regularity of the solutions of Euler equations, and provides links of such properties to the smoothness in time of the flow of the solution vector field.

One-dimensional variational problems have been somewhat neglected in the literature on calculus of variations, as authors usually treat minimal problems for multiple integrals which lead to partial differential equations and are considerably more difficult to handle. One-dimensional problems are connected with ordinary differential equations, and hence need many fewer technical prerequisites, but they exhibit the same kind of phenomena and surprises as variational problems for multiple integrals. This book provides an modern introduction to this subject, placing special emphasis on direct methods. It combines the efforts of a distinguished team of authors who are all renowned mathematicians and expositors. Since there are fewer technical details graduate students who want an overview of the modern approach to variational problems will be able to concentrate on the underlying theory and hence gain a good grounding in the subject. Except for results from the theory of measure and integration and from the theory of convex functions, the text develops all mathematical tools needed, including the basic results on one-dimensional Sobolev spaces, absolutely continuous functions, and functions of bounded variation.

This book provides a self-contained introduction to the mathematical theory of hyperbolic systems of conservation laws, with particular emphasis on the study of discontinuous solutions, characterized by the appearance of shock waves. This area has experienced substantial progress in very recent years thanks to the introduction of new techniques, in particular the front tracking algorithm and the semigroup approach. These techniques provide a solution to the long standing open problems of uniqueness and stability of entropy weak solutions. This monograph is the first to present a comprehensive account of these new, fundamental advances, mainly obtained by the author together with several collaborators. It also includes a detailed analysis of the stability and convergence of the front tracking algorithm. The book is addressed to graduate students as well as researchers. Both the elementary and the more advanced material are carefully explained, helping the reader's visual intuition with over 70 figures. A set of problems, with varying difficulty, is given at the end of each chapter. These exercises are designed to verify and expand a student's understanding of the concepts and techniques previously discussed. For researchers, this book will provide an indispensable reference for the state of the art, in the field of hyperbolic systems of conservation laws. The last chapter contains a large, up to date list of references, preceded by extensive bibliographical notes.

The theory of Gamma-convergence is commonly recognized as an ideal and flexible tool for the description of the asymptotic behaviour of variational problems. Its applications range from the mathematical analysis of composites to the theory of phase transitions, from Image Processing to Fracture Mechanics. This text, written by an expert in the field, provides a brief and simple introduction to this subject, based on the treatment of a series of fundamental problems that illustrate the main features and techniques of Gamma-convergence and at the same time provide a stimulating starting point for further studies. The main part is set in a one-dimensional framework that highlights the main issues of Gamma-convergence without the burden of higher-dimensional technicalities. The text deals in sequence with increasingly complex problems, first treating integral functionals, then homogenisation, segmentation problems, phase transitions, free-discontinuity problems and their discrete and continuous approximation, making stimulating connections among those problems and with applications. The final part is devoted to an introduction to higher-dimensional problems, where more technical tools are usually needed, but the main techniques of Gamma-convergence illustrated in the previous section may be applied unchanged. The book and its structure originate from the author's experience in teaching courses on this subject to students at PhD level in all fields of Applied Analysis, and from the interaction with many specialists in Mechanics and Computer Vision, which have helped in making the text addressed also to a non-mathematical audience. The material of the book is almost self-contained, requiring only some basic notion of Measure Theory and Functional Analysis.

This book gives a general presentation of the mathematical and numerical connections kinetic theory and conservation laws based on several earlier works with P. L. Lions and E. Tadmor, as well as on more recent developments. The kinetic formalism approach allows the reader to consider Partial Differential Equations, such as some nonlinear conservation laws, as linear kinetic (or semi-kinetic) equations acting on a nonlinear quantity. It also aids the reader with using Fourier transform, regularisation, and moments methods to provide new approaches for proving uniqueness, regularizing effects, and a priori bounds.Special care has been given to introduce basic tools, including the classical Boltzmann formalism to derive compressible fluid dynamics, the study of oscillatons through the kinetic defect measure, and an elementary construction of solutions to scalar conservation laws. More advanced material contains regularizing effects through averaging lemmas, existence of global large solutions to isentropic gas dynamics, and a new uniqueness proof for scalar conservation laws. Sections are also devoted to the derivation of numerical approaches, the 'kinetic schemes', and the analysis of their theoretical properties.

'Phylogenetics' is the reconstruction and analysis of phylogenetic (evolutionary) trees and networks based on inherited characteristics. It is a flourishing area of intereaction between mathematics, statistics, computer science and biology.The main role of phylogenetic techniques lies in evolutionary biology, where it is used to infer historical relationships between species. However, the methods are also relevant to a diverse range of fields including epidemiology, ecology, medicine, as well as linguistics and cognitive psychologyThis graduate-level book, based on the authors lectures at The University of Canterbury, New Zealand, focuses on the mathematical aspects of phylogenetics. It brings together the central results of the field (providing proofs of the main theorem), outlines their biological significance,and indicates how algorithms may be derived. The presentation is self-contained and relies on discrete mathematics with some probability theory. A set of exercises and at least one specialist topic ends each chapter.This book is intended for biologists interested in the mathematical theory behind phylogenetic methods, and for mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists eager to learn about this emerging area of discrete mathematics.'Phylogenetics' in the 24th volume in the Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and its Applications. This series contains short books suitable for graduate students and researchers who want a well-written account of mathematics that is fundamental to current to research. The series emphasises future directions of research and focuses on genuine applications of mathematics to finance, engineering and the physical and biological sciences.

In this book we study the degree theory and some of its applications in analysis. It focuses on the recent developments of this theory for Sobolev functions, which distinguishes this book from the currently available literature. We begin with a thorough study of topological degree for continuous functions. The contents of the book include: degree theory for continuous functions, the multiplication theorem, Hopf`s theorem, Brower`s fixed point theorem, odd mappings, Jordan`s separation theorem. Following a brief review of measure theory and Sobolev functions and study local invertibility of Sobolev functions. These results are put to use in the study variational principles in nonlinear elasticity. The Leray-Schauder degree in infinite dimensional spaces is exploited to obtain fixed point theorems. We end the book by illustrating several applications of the degree in the theories of ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations.

One of the most challenging topics in applied mathematics over the past decades has been the developent of the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations. Many of the problems in mechanics, geometry, probability, etc lead to such equations when formulated in mathematical terms. However, despite a long history of contributions, there exists no central core theory, and the most important advances have come from the study of particular equations and classes of equations arising in specific applications. This two volume work forms a unique and rigorous treatise on various mathematical aspects of fluid mechanics models. These models consist of systems of nonlinear partial differential equations like the incompressible and compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The main emphasis in Volume 1 is on the mathematical analysis of incompressible models. After recalling the fundamental description of Newtonian fluids, an original and self-contained study of both the classical Navier-Stokes equations (including the inhomogenous case) and the Euler equations is given. Known results and many new results about the existence and regularity of solutions are presented with complete proofs. The discussion contiatns many interesting insights and remarks. The text highlights in particular the use of modern analytical tools and methods and also indicates many open problems. Volume 2 will be devoted to essentially new results for compressible models. Written by one of the world's leading researchers in nonlinear partial differential equations, Mathematical Topics in Fluid Mechanics will be an indispensable reference for every serious researcher in the field. Its topicality and the clear, concise, and deep presentation by the author make it an outstanding contribution to the great theoretical problems in science concerning rigorous mathematical modelling of physical phenomena. Pierre-Louis Lions is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Paris-Dauphine and of Applied Mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique.

This series of books forms a unique and rigorous treatise on various mathematical aspects of fluid mechanics models. These models consist of systems of nonlinear partial differential equations such as the incompressible and compressible NavierStokes equations. The main emphasis in the first volume is on the mathematical analysis of incompressible models. The second volume is an attempt to achieve a mathematical understanding of compressible Navier-Stokes equations. It is probably the first reference covering the issue of global solutions in the large. It includes entirely new material on compactness properties of solutions for the Cauchy problem, the existence and regularity of stationary solutions, and the existence of global weak solutions. Written by one of the world's leading researchers in nonlinear partial differential equations, Mathematical Topics in Fluid Mechanics will be an indispensable reference for every serious researcher in the field. Its topicality and the clear, concise, and deep presentation by the author make it an outstanding contribution to the great theoretical problems in science concerning rigorous mathematical modelling of physical phenomena. Pierre-Louis Lions is Professor of Mathematics at the University Paris-Dauphine and of Applied Mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique.

The purpose of this book is to inform mathematicians about the applicability of graph theory to other areas of mathematics, from number theory, to linear algebra, knots, neural networks, and finance. This is achieved through a series of expository chapters, each devoted to a different field and written by an expert in that field. This book is more than a collection of essays however, in that the chapters have been carefully edited to ensure a common level of exposition, with terminology and notation standardized as far as possible. This book will be useful to professsional mathematicians and graduate students. It should also appeal to scientists working in other areas.

This is a book about graph homomorphisms. Graph theory is now an established discipline but the study of graph homomorphisms has only recently begun to gain wide acceptance and interest. The subject gives a useful perspective in areas such as graph reconstruction, products, fractional and circular colourings, and has applications in complexity theory, artificial intelligence, telecommunication, and, most recently, statistical physics.Based on the authors' lecture notes for graduate courses, this book can be used as a textbook for a second course in graph theory at 4th year or master's level and has been used for courses at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), Charles University (Prague), ETH (Zurich), and UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro). The exercises vary in difficulty. The first few are usually intended to give the reader an opportunity to practice the concepts introduced in the chapter; the later ones explore related concepts, or even introduce new ones. For the harder exercises hints and references are provided.The authors are well known for their research in this area and the book will be invaluable to graduate students and researchers alike.

The book develops the most recent ideas and concepts of the mathematical theory of viscous, compressible and heat conducting fluids. Two main goals are pursued: (i) global existence theory within the framework of variational (weak) solutions for the full system of the Navier-Stokes equations supplemented with large data; and (ii) optimal existence results for the barotropic flows with respect to the available a priori estimates.The book is intended to be a compact and self-contained presentation of the most recent results of the mathematical theory of viscous compressible fluids. In order to place the text in better perspective, each chapter is concluded with a section devoted to historical notes including references to all important and new results. The material is by no means intended to be the last word on the subject but rather to indicate possible directions of future research. It is aimed at research mathematicians, theoretical physicists, engineers and graduate students.

Based on lecture notes from the Scuola Normale this book presents the main mathematical prerequisites for analysis in metric spaces. Supplemented with exercises of varying difficulty it is ideal for a graduate-level short course for applied mathematicians and engineers. The book covers abstract measure theory, Hausdorff measures, Lipschitz functions, covering theorems, lower semicontinuity of the one-dimensional Hausdorff measure, Sobolev spaces of maps between metric spaces, and Gromov-Hausdorff theory, all developed in a general metric setting. The existence of geodesics (and more generally of minimal Steiner connections) is discussed in general metric spaces and, as an application of the Gromov-Hausdorff theory, even in some cases when the ambient space is not locally compact. A brief and very general description of the theory of integration with respect to non-decreasing set functions is presented following the Di Giorgi method of using Cavalieri's formula as the definition of the integral.

The text is based on an established graduate course given at MIT that provides an introduction to the theory of the dynamical Yang-Baxter equation and its applications, which is an important area in representation theory and quantum groups. The book, which contains many detailed proofs and explicit calculations, will be accessible to graduate students of mathematics, who are familiar with the basics of representation theory of semisimple Lie algebras.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the mathematical theory of compressible flow, describing both inviscid and viscous compressible flow, which are governed by the Euler and the Navier-Stokes equations respectively. The method of presentation allows readers with different backgrounds to focus on various modules of the material, either in part or more fully. Chapters include detailed heuristic arguments providing motivation for technical aspects that are rigorously presented later on in the text; for instance, the existence theory for steady and unsteady Navier-Stokes equations of isentropic compressible flow, and two-by-two systems of Euler equations in one space dimension. These parts are presented in a textbook style with auxiliary material in supporting sections and appendices. The book includes a rich index and extensive bibliography, thus allowing for quick orientation among the vast collection of literature on the mathematical theory of compressible flow, as well as in the book itself.

In the mid-1980's, Abhay Ashtekar discovered a reformulation of general relativity in terms of what are now called the "new variables". This led to a rapid series of developments, and in 1990 Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin published a paper entitled "Loop representation of quantum general relativity", in which, among other things, it was shown that there is a space of solutions to the constraint equations of quantum gravity consisting of link invariants. The discovery of relations between quantum gravity and the theory of knots and links came as quite a surprise, since the topics had been regarded as quite remote from each other.This volume is the proceedings of a workshop held in 1993 at the University of California at Riverside. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together researchers in knot theory and quantum gravity and form more bridges between the two subjects. Most of the talks were given by researchers whose work has significance for both subjects. This volume contains expository papers as well as new results, and should serve as a guide for mathematicians and physicists seeking to understand this rapidly developing area of research.

In recent years there has been an explosion of research into linear programming, as well as further steady advances in integer programming. This research has been reported in the research literature but there has been little done from the view of a "combined whole". This book aims to overcome this. With an international authorship of contributors from acknowledged experts in their field, this book provides a clear exposition on such topics as simplex algorithms, and interior point algorithms, both from a theoretical and a computational viewpoint. Surveying recent research that is currently only available in journals this topical book will be of interest not only in the field of mathematics, but also in computer science and operations research as well.

This book provides an introduction to the mathematical theory of homogenization, which describes the replacement of a real composite material by a fictitious homogeneous one. The aim of the theory is to describe the macroscopic properties of the composite by taking into account the properties of the microscopic structure. The first four chapters cover variational methods for partial differential equations, which is the natural framework of homogenization theory. The text then discusses the homogenization of several kinds of second order boundary value problems. Particular attention is given to the classical examples of the steady and non-steady heat equations, the wave equation and the linearized system of elasticity. All topics are illustrated by figures and numerous examples.

This research-level text is an application-oriented introduction to the growing and highly topical area of the development and analysis of efficient fixed-parameter algorithms for optimally solving computationally hard combinatorial problems.The book is divided into three parts: a broad introduction that provides the general philosophy and motivation; followed by coverage of algorithmic methods developed over the years in fixed-parameter algorithmics forming the core of the book; and a discussion of the essentials from parameterized hardness theory with a focus on W[1]-hardness which parallels NP-hardness, then stating some relations to polynomial-time approximation algorithms, and finishing up with a list of selected case studies to show the wide range of applicability of the presented methodology.Aimed at graduate and research mathematicians, programmers, algorithm designers, and computer scientists, the book introduces the basic techniques and results and provides a fresh view on this highly innovative field of algorithmic research.