When an object is heated by microwaves, isolated regions of excessive heating can often occur. The present paper investigates such hotspots by both perturbation and numerical means. For quite normal materials, it is shown that small temperature anomalies can grow to form hotspots. Furthermore, such effects do not need to be associated with thermal runaway.

The existence of an inertial manifold for a reaction-diffusion equation model of the chemostat is established.

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.

Fisher's equation, which describes a balance between linear diffusion and nonlinear reaction or multiplication, is studied numerically by a Petrov-Galerkin finite element method. The results show that any local initial disturbance can propagate with a constant limiting speed when time becomes sufficiently large. Both the limiting wave fronts and the limiting speed are determined by the system itself and are independent of the initial values. Comparing with other studies, the numerical scheme used in this paper is satisfactory with regard to its accuracy and stability. It has the advantage of being much more concise.

We examine the piecewise-constant collocation method, with collocation points the mid-points of subintervals, for first-kind integral equations with logarithmic kernels on polygonal boundaries. Previously this method had been shown to converge subject to certain restrictions on the angles at the corners of the polygon. Here, by considering a slightly modified collocation method, we are able to remove any restrictions on these angles, and to generalise slightly the meshes which may be used. Moreover, the modification leads to new results on the convergence of preconditioned two-(or multi-) grid methods for solving the resultant linear systems.

A perturbation model is used to predict the distance jumped by a long-jumper for a range of tailwinds and headwinds. The zeroth-order approximation is based on gravity being the only force present, the effects of drag and lift only being included in the first-order corrections. The difference in predicted distances produced by the zeroth and first-order approximations is less than 2% for headwinds or tailwinds upto 4 ms−1. Most increases or decreases due to wind are caused by changes in the run-up speed, and consequently the take-off angle and speed.

The Einstein field equations have been solved for Bianchi type VI0 spacetimes with viscous fluid source. Four cosmological models are derived. They have nonzero expansion and shear. One of them have nonzero constant shear viscosity coefficient.

We discuss uniqueness and continuation of solutions to the Cauchy problem for a two dimensional Emden-Fowler differential system.

We prove the existence and regularity of the solution of an initial boundary value problem for viscous incompressible non-homogeneous fluids, using a semi-Galerkin approximation and so-called compatibility conditions.

The problem of generation of waves in a liquid of uniform finite depth with an inertial surface composed of a thin but uniform distribution of disconnected floating particles, due to forced axisymmetric motion prescribed on the surface of an immersed vertical cylindrical wave-maker of circular cross section under the influence of surface tension at the inertial surface, is discussed. The techniques of Laplace transform in time and the modified Weber transform involving Bessel functions in the radial coordinate have been employed to obtain the velocity potential. The steady-state development to the potential function as well as the inertial surface depression due to time-harmonic forced oscillations of the wave-maker are deduced. It is found that the presence of surface tension at the inertial surface ensures the propagation of time-harmonic progressive waves of any angular frequency.