The paper contains mainly three theorems involving generating functions expressed in terms of single and double Laplace and beta integrals. The theorems, in turn, yield, as special cases, a number of bilinear and bilateral generating functions of generalized functions particularly general double and triple hypergeometric series. One variable special cases of the generalized functions are important in several applied problems.

The generalized diffusion equation with a nonlinear source term which encompasses the Fisher, Newell-Whitehead and Fitzhugh-Nagumo equations as particular forms and appears in a wide variety of physical and engineering applications has been analysed for its generalized symmetries (isovectors) via the isovector approach. This yields a new and exact solution to the generalized diffusion equation. Further applications of group theoretic techniques on the travelling wave reductions of the Fisher, Newell-Whitehead and Fitzhugh-Nagumo equations result in integrability conditions and Lie vector fields for these equations. The Lie group of transformations obtained from the exponential vector fields reduces these equations in generalized form to a standard second-order differential equation of nonlinear type, which for particular cases become the Weierstrass and Jacobi elliptic equations. A particular solution to the generalized case yields the exact solutions that have been obtained through different techniques. The group-theoretic integrability relations of the Fisher and Newell-Whitehead equations have been cross-checked through Painlevé analysis, which yields a new solution to the Fisher equation in a complex-valued function form.

An analytical solution of a two-dimensional bow and stern flow model based on a flat ship theory is presented for the first time. The flat ship theory is a counterpart to Michell's thin ship theory and leads to a mixed initial-boundary value problem, which is usually difficult to solve analytically. Starting from the transient problem, we shall first show that a steady state is attainable at the large time limit. Then the steady problem is solved in detail by means of the Wiener-Hopf technique and closed-form far-field results are obtained for an arbitrary hull shape. Apart from providing a better understanding of the underlying physics, the newly found analytical solution has shed some light on solving a longtime outstanding problem in the engineering practice of ship building, the optimisation of hull shape.

Online retailers are increasingly adding buy-online and pick-up-in-store (BOPS) modes to order fulfilment. In this paper, we study a system of BOPS by developing a stochastic Nash equilibrium model with incentive compatibility constraints, where the online retailer seeks optimal online sale prices and an optimal delivery schedule in an order cycle, and the offline retailer pursues a maximal rate of sharing the profit owing to the consignment from the online retailer. By an expectation method and optimality conditions, the equilibrium model is first transformed into a system of constrained nonlinear equations. Then, by a case study and sensitivity analysis, the model is validated and the following practical insights are revealed. (I) Our method can reliably provide an equilibrium strategy for the online and offline retailers under BOPS mode, including the optimal online selling price, the optimal delivery schedule, the optimal inventory and the optimal allocation of profits. (II) Different model parameters, such as operational cost, price sensitivity coefficient, cross-sale factor, opportunity loss ratio and loss ratio of unsold goods, generate distinct impacts on the equilibrium solution and the profits of the BOPS system. (III) Optimization of the delivery schedule can generate greater consumer surplus, and makes the offline retailer share less sale profit from the online retailer, even if the total profit of the BOPS system becomes higher. (IV) Inventory subsidy is an indispensable factor to improve the applicability of the game model in BOPS mode.

An improved model of water cresting towards horizontal wells is presented, using a hodograph solution to the lateral edge drive model with a constant potential boundary at a finite outer radius. In this model, the water crest tends to a horizontal asymptote far from the well, correcting previous approaches which led to the unphysical result of a crest which never levels off but, rather, tends to a parabolic curve. The hodograph solution yields the shape of the free water-oil interface. It also yields integral representations for the lengths of boundary segments, and these have enabled the derivation of an explicit expression for the critical rate in terms of the outer radius. The critical rates calculated using the improved model do not differ significantly from those calculated using previous approaches. The main advantage of the model, therefore, is not a correction to the quantitative predictions of the critical rate, but the removal of physical inconsistencies in the underlying theory.

A plane strain or plane stress configuration of an inextensible transversely isotropic linear elastic solid with the axis of symmetry in the plane, leads to a harmonic lateral displacement field in stretched coordinates. Various displacement and mixed displacement-traction boundary conditions yield standard boundary-value problems of potential theory for which uniqueness and existence of solutions are well established. However, the important case of prescribed tractions at each boundary point gives a non-standard potential problem involving linking of boundary values at opposite ends of chords parallel to the axis of material symmetry. Uniqueness and existence of solutions, within arbitrary rigid motions, are now established for the traction problem for general domains.

We study certain types of composite nonsmooth minimization problems by introducing a general smooth approximation method. Under various conditions we derive bounds on error estimates of the functional values of original objective function at an approximate optimal solution and at the optimal solution. Finally, we obtain second-order necessary optimality conditions for the smooth approximation prob lems using a recently introduced generalized second-order directional derivative.

The BFGS formula is arguably the most well known and widely used update method for quasi-Newton algorithms. Some authors have claimed that updating approximate Hessian information via the BFGS formula with a Cholesky factorisation offers greater numerical stability than the more straightforward approach of performing the update directly. Other authors have claimed that no such advantage exists and that any such improvement is probably due to early implementations of the DFP formula in conjunction with low accuracy line searches.

This paper supports the claim that there is no discernible advantage in choosing factorised implementations (over non-factorised implementations) of BFGS methods when approximate Hessian information is available to full machine precision. However the results presented in this paper show that a factorisation strategy has clear advantages when approximate Hessian information is available only to limited precision. These results show that a conjugate directions factorisation outperforms the other methods considered in this paper (including Cholesky factorisation).

We consider a generalisation of the stochastic formulation of smoothing splines, and discuss the smoothness properties of the resulting conditional expectation (generalised smoothing spline), and the sensitivity of the numerical algorithms. One application is to the calculation of smoothing splines with less than the usual order of continuity at the data points.

In the framework of Mond-Weir duality a new equivalence between nonlinear programming and a matrix game is given. Finally, certain conclusions about convex programming with nested maxima and matrix games are also included.

An inequality involving the logarithmic mean is established. Specifically, we show that

where . Then several generalizations are given.

In this paper some existence results for third-order differential equations with nonlinear boundary value conditions are derived. Functional dependence in the data is allowed. In the proofs we use the method of upper and lower solutions, Schauder's fixed point theorem and results from Cabada and Heikkilä on third-order differential equations with linear and nonfunctional initial-boundary value conditions.

An investigation is made of a hybrid method inspired by Riccati transformations and marching algorithms employing (parts of) orthogonal matrices, both being decoupling algorithms. It is shown that this so-called continuous orthonormalisation is stable and practical as well. Nevertheless, if the problem is stiff and many output points are required the method does not give much gain over, say, multiple shooting.

In this paper we consider simplifying a model of the nitrogen cycle in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia. The approach taken is to aggregate state variables that are linearly related using a projection in state space. The technique involved is a modification of proper orthogonal decomposition and was developed so that a resulting simplified model retains an ecological interpretation. It can be applied automatically, and enables insights into the system to be gained that were not obvious beforehand. In the case of the Port Phillip Bay model, we find that the variables representing water and sand are unaffected by the remaining variables, while only variables on the same trophic level can be grouped together. The validity of the aggregation under several nutrient loads is also discussed.

Additional convergence results are given for the approximate solution in the space L2(a, b) of Fredholm integral equations of the second kind, y = f + Ky, by the degenerate-kernel methods of Sloan, Burn and Datyner. Convergence to the exact solution is provided for a class of these methods (including ‘method 2’), under suitable conditions on the kernel K, and error bounds are obtained. In every case the convergence is faster than that of the best approximate solution of the form yn = Σnan1u1, where u1, …, un are the appropriate functions used in the rank-n degenerate-kernel approximation. In addition, the error for method 2 is shown to be relatively unaffected if the integral equation has an eigenvalue near 1.

The asymptotic properties of solutions of the non-linear eigenvalue problem, associated with the homogeneoud Dirichlet problem for

are investigated. Here f and g are smooth functions of position in a finite plane region with a smooth boundary. The results for the positive solution are well established, but knowledge of other branches of solutions is scarce. Here positive solutions are pieced together across lines partitioning the domain, and variational arguments are framed, as an effective means of locating the lines, so that the composite function is everywhere a solution of *. Heuristic arguments suggest strongly that there is a close relationship between the nodal lines of * and certain classes of weighted geodesic lines defined by the classical variational problem for the functional

which provides an effective basis for computation. Some results are proved but others remain conjectures. Analogous results are proved for the associated ordinary differential equation. The geometry of the solutions is surprisingly restricted when the coefficients are spatially variable. The arguments are extended to a class of reactive, diffusive systems. It is possible to predict the pattern of domains of different outcomes in terms of properties of the surface on which the reactions occur, without a knowledge of the chemical kinetics. The results appear to provide a basis for stringent testing of the postulated role of reactive-diffusive mechanisms in the formation of complex patterns in biological species.

The modulation of short gravity waves by long waves or currents is described for the situation when the flow is irrotational and when the short waves are described by linearised equations. Two cases are distinguished depending on whether the basic flow can be characterised as a deep-water current, or a shallow-water current. In both cases the basic flow has a current which has finite amplitude, while in the first case the free surface slope of the basic flow can be finite, but in the second case is small. The modulation equations are the local dispersion relation of the short waves, the kinematic equation for conservation of wave crests and the wave action equation. The results incorporate and extend the earlier work of Longuet-Higgins and Stewart [10, 11].

We prove the existence of optimal control for nonlinear systems having implicit derivative with quadratic performace criteria.

We investigate natural convection cooling of the fluid in a drink can placed in a refrigerator by simulating the full combined boundary layer system on the can wall. The cylindrical can is filled with water at initial nondimensional temperature 0, and located within a larger cylindrical container filled with air at initial temperature −1. The outer container walls are maintained at constant temperature −1. Initially both fluids are at rest. Two configurations are examined: the first has the inner can placed vertically in the middle of the outer container with no contact with the outer container walls, and the second has the inner can placed vertically at the bottom of the outer container. The results are compared to those obtained by assuming that the inner can walls are maintained at a constant temperature, showing similar basic flow features and scaling relations, but with very different proportionality constants.

Recently Dragomir and Goh have produced some interesting new bounds relating to entropy measures in information theory. We establish several refinements of their results.