Equations governing modulations of weakly nonlinear water waves are described. The modulations are coupled with wave-induced mean flows except in the case of water deeper than the modulation length scale. Equations suitable for water depths of the order the modulation length scale are deduced from those derived by Davey and Stewartson [5] and Dysthe [6]. A number of ases in which these equations reduce to a one dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation are enumerated.

Several analytical solutions of NLS equations are presented, with discussion of some of their implications for describing the propagation of water waves. Some of the solutions have not been presented in detail, or in convenient form before. One is new, a “rational” solution describing an “amplitude peak” which is isolated in space-time. Ma's [13] soli ton is particularly relevant to the recurrence of uniform wave trains in the experiment of Lake et al.[10].

In further discussion it is pointed out that although water waves are unstable to three-dimensional disturbances, an effective description of weakly nonlinear two-dimensional waves would be a useful step towards describing ocean wave propagation.

Recently it was shown that many results in Mathematical Programming involving convex functions actually hold for a wider class of functions, called invex. Here a simple characterization of invexity is given for both constrained and unconstrained problems. The relationship between invexity and other generalizations of convexity is illustrated. Finally, it is shown that invexity can be substituted for convexity in the saddle point problem and in the Slater constraint qualification.

The sufficient optimality conditions and duality results have recently been given for the following generalised convex programming problem:

where the funtion f and g satisfy

for some η: X0 × X0 → ℝn

It is shown here that a relaxation defining the above generalised convexity leads to a new class of multi-objective problems which preserves the sufficient optimality and duality results in the scalar case, and avoids the major difficulty of verifying that the inequality holds for the same function η(. , .). Further, this relaxation allows one to treat certain nonlinear multi-objective fractional programming problems and some other classes of nonlinear (composite) problems as special cases.

A set of easily verifiable sufficient conditions are obtained for the existence of a globally asymptotically stable periodic solution in a Lotka-Volterra system with periodic coefficients.

A train travels from one station to the next along a level track. The journey must be completed within a given time and it is desirable to minimise the energy required to drive the train. It has been shown with an appropriate formulation of the problem that an optimal strategy exists and that this strategy must satisfy a Pontryagin type criterion. In this paper the Pontryagin principle will be used to find the nature of the optimal strategy and this information will then be used to determine the precise optimal strategy.

One of the most succesful algorithims for nonlinear least squares calculations is that associated with the names of Levenberg, Marquardt, and Morrison. This algorithim gives a method which depends nonlinearly on a parameter γ for computing the correction to the current point. In this paper an attempt is made to give a rule for choosing γ which (a) permits a satisfactory convergence theorem to be proved, and (b) is capable of satisfactory computer implementation. It is beleieved that the stated aims have been met with reasonable success. The convergence theorem is both simple and global in character, and a computer code is given which appears to be at least competitive with existing alternatives.

We study the numerical solution of an initial-boundary value problem for a Volterra type integro-differential equation, in which the integral operator is a convolution product of a positive-definite kernel and an elliptic partial-differential operator. The equation is discretised in space by the Galerkin finite-element method and in time by finite differences in combination with various quadrature rules which preserve the positive character of the memory term. Special attention is paid to the case of a weakly singular kernel. Error estimates are derived and numerical experiments reported.

Consider a general class of constrained optimal control problems in canonical form. Using the classical control parameterization technique, the time (planning) horizon is partitioned into several subintervals. The control functions are approximated by piecewise constant or piecewise linear functions with pre-fixed switching times. However, if the optimal control functions to be obtained are piecewise continuous, the accuracy of this approximation process greatly depends on how fine the partition is. On the other hand, the performance of any optimization algorithm used is limited by the number of decision variables of the problem. Thus, the time horizon cannot be partitioned into arbitrarily many subintervals to reach the desired accuracy. To overcome this difficulty, the switching points should also be taken as decision variables. This is the main motivation of the paper. A novel transform, to be referred to as the control parameterization enhancing transform, is introduced to convert approximate optimal control problems with variable switching times into equivalent standard optimal control problems involving piecewise constant or piecewise linear control functions with pre-fixed switching times. The transformed problems are essentially optimal parameter selection problems and hence are solvable by various existing algorithms. For illustration, two non-trivial numerical examples are solved using the proposed method.

We prove estimates for the partial derivatives of the solution to a time-fractional diffusion equation posed over a bounded spatial domain. Such estimates are needed for the analysis of effective numerical methods, particularly since the solution is typically less regular than in the familiar case of classical diffusion.

A simple elliptic model is developed for the spread of a fire front through grassland. This is used to predict theoretical fire fronts, which agree closely with those obtained in practice.

The time fractional diffusion equation with appropriate initial and boundary conditions in an n-dimensional whole-space and half-space is considered. Its solution has been obtained in terms of Green functions by Schneider and Wyss. For the problem in whole-space, an explicit representation of the Green functions can also be obtained. However, an explicit representation of the Green functions for the problem in half-space is difficult to determine, except in the special cases α = 1 with arbitrary n, or n = 1 with arbitrary α. In this paper, we solve these problems. By investigating the explicit relationship between the Green functions of the problem with initial conditions in whole-space and that of the same problem with initial and boundary conditions in half-space, an explicit expression for the Green functions corresponding to the latter can be derived in terms of Fox functions. We also extend some results of Liu, Anh, Turner and Zhuang concerning the advection-dispersion equation and obtain its solution in half-space and in a bounded space domain.

This paper establishes some maximum and comparison principles relative to lower and upper solutions of nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations with impulsive effects. These principles are applied to obtain some sufficient conditions for the global asymptotic stability of a unique positive equilibrium in a reaction-diffusion equation modeling the growth of a single-species population subject to abrupt changes of certain important system parameters.

In previous papers, three terms have been included in Ogden's stress-deformation function for incompressible isotropic elastic materials. The material constants have been calculated by elementary methods and the resulting fits to sets of experimental data have been moderately good.

The purpose of the present paper is to improve upon established correlation between theory and experiment by means of a systematic optimization procedure for calculating material constants. For purposes of illustration the Levenberg-Marquardt non-linear least squares optimization algorithm is adapted to determine the material constants in Ogden's stress-deformation function.

The use of this algorithm for three-term stress-deformation functions improves somewhat on previous results. Calculations are also carried out in respect of a four-term stress-deformation function and further improvement in the fit is achieved over a large range of deformation.

This is a discussion of some numerical integration methods for surface integrals over the unit sphere in R3. Product Gaussian quadrature and finite-element type methods are considered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the evaluation of singular double layer integrals arising in potential theory.

The maximum principle for optimal control problems of stochastic systems consisting of forward and backward state variables is proved, under the assumption that the diffusion coefficient does not contain the control variable, but the control domain need not be convex.

We consider the Volterra-Lotka equations for two competing species in which the right-hand sides are periodic in time. Using topological degree, we show that conditions recently given by K. Gopalsamy, which imply the existence of a periodic solution with positive components, also imply the uniqueness and asymptotic stability of the solution. We also give optimal upper and lower bounds for the components of the solution.

The Kelvin impulse is a particularly valuable dynamical concept in unsteady fluid mechanics, with Benjamin and Ellis [2] appearing to be the first to have realised its value in cavitation bubble dynamics. The Kelvin impulse corresponds to the apparent inertia of the cavitation bubble and, like the linear momentum of a projectile, may be used to determine aspect It is defined as

where ρ is the fluid density, ø is the velocity potential, S is the surface of the cavitation bubble and n is the outward normal to the fluid. Contributions to the Kelvin impulse may come from the presence of nearby boundaries and the ambient velocity and pressure field. With this number of mechanisms contributing to its development, the Kelvin impulse may change sign during the lifetime of the bubble. After collapse of the bubble, it needs to be conserved, usually in the form of a ring vortex. The Kelvin impulse is likely to provide valuable indicators as to the physical properties required of boundaries in order to reduce or eliminate cavitation damage. Comparisons are made against available experimental evidence.

This paper is concerned with deformations corresponding to antiplane shear in finite elastostatics. The principal result is a necessary and sufficient condition for a homogeneous, isotropic, incompressible material to admit nontrivial states of anti-plane shear. The condition is given in terms of the strain energy density characteristic of the material and is illustrated by means of special examples.

A solution is found for a line source or sink beneath a free surface, at a unique squared Froude number of 12.622.

A Chebyshev pseudo-spectral method for solving numerically linear and nonlinear fractional-order integro-differential equations of Volterra type is considered. The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense. The suggested method reduces these types of equations to the solution of linear or nonlinear algebraic equations. Special attention is given to study the convergence of the proposed method. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to show that this method is computationally efficient, and a comparison is made with existing results.