Mathematical modelling of microwaves travelling through bauxite ore provides a way to compute moisture content in the free space transmission method given data on signal attenuation, phase shift and variable bauxite depth. We extend a recently developed four-layer model that uses coupled ordinary differential wave equations for the electric field together with continuity boundary conditions at interfaces between ore, air and antenna to find a solution that incorporates multiple internal reflections in ore and air. The model provides good fits to data, depending on ore permittivity and conductivity.

Our extensions are to use effective medium models to obtain electromagnetic properties of the ore mixture from moisture content and to incorporate the damping effects of scattering from the ore surface. Our model leads to a formula for the received signal showing how signal strengths SS and phase shifts depend on the moisture content of the bauxite ore, through the effects of moisture on permittivity and conductivity. We show that SS may be noninvertible, indicating that attenuation data alone cannot be used to infer moisture content. Combining with phase data typically corrects the noninvertibility. Reducing the operating frequency dramatically improves the usefulness of signal strength data for inferring moisture content.

In this paper, we consider non-self-adjoint Dirac operators on a finite interval with complex-valued potentials and quasi-periodic boundary conditions. Necessary and sufficient conditions for a set of complex numbers to be the spectrum of the indicated problem are established.

Multi-compartment models described by systems of linear ordinary differential equations are considered. Catenary models are a particular class where the compartments are arranged in a chain. A unified methodology based on the Laplace transform is utilised to solve direct and inverse problems for multi-compartment models. Explicit formulas for the parameters in a catenary model are obtained in terms of the roots of elementary symmetric polynomials. A method to estimate parameters for a general multi-compartment model is also provided. Results of numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the approach.

We introduce novel multi-agent interaction models of entropic spatially inhomogeneous evolutionary undisclosed games and their quasi-static limits. These evolutions vastly generalise first- and second-order dynamics. Besides the well-posedness of these novel forms of multi-agent interactions, we are concerned with the learnability of individual payoff functions from observation data. We formulate the payoff learning as a variational problem, minimising the discrepancy between the observations and the predictions by the payoff function. The inferred payoff function can then be used to simulate further evolutions, which are fully data-driven. We prove convergence of minimising solutions obtained from a finite number of observations to a mean-field limit, and the minimal value provides a quantitative error bound on the data-driven evolutions. The abstract framework is fully constructive and numerically implementable. We illustrate this on computational examples where a ground truth payoff function is known and on examples where this is not the case, including a model for pedestrian movement.

We consider inverse nodal problems for the Sturm–Liouville operators on the tree graphs. Can only dense nodes distinguish the tree graphs? In this paper it is shown that the data of dense-nodes uniquely determines the potential (up to a constant) on the tree graphs. This provides interesting results for an open question implied in the paper.

We obtain the representation of the backward shift operator on Chebyshev polynomials involving a principal value (PV) integral. Twice the backward shift on the space of square-summable sequences l2 displays chaotic dynamics, thus we provide an explicit form of a chaotic operator on L2 (−1, 1, (1−x2)–1/2) using Cauchy’s PV integral. We explicitly calculate the periodic points of the operator and provide examples of unbounded trajectories, as well as chaotic ones. Histograms and recurrence plots of shifts of random Chebyshev expansions display interesting behaviour over fractal measures.

Laplace operators on finite compact metric graphs are considered under the assumption that matching conditions at graph vertices are of types ${\it\delta}$ and ${\it\delta}^{\prime }$. Assuming rational independence of edge lengths, necessary and sufficient conditions for isospectrality of two Laplacians defined on the same graph are derived and scrutinized. It is proved that the spectrum of a graph Laplacian uniquely determines matching conditions for “almost all” graphs.

We prove a general Borg-type result for reflectionless unitary CMV operators $U$ associated with orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle. The spectrum of $U$ is assumed to be a connected arc on the unit circle. This extends a recent result of Simon in connection with a periodic CMV operator with spectrum the whole unit circle.

In the course of deriving the Borg-type result we also use exponential Herglotz representations of Caratheodory functions to prove an infinite sequence of trace formulas connected with the CMV operator $U$.

The paper examines a higher-order ordinary differential equation of the form $\mathcal{P}[u]\,{:=} \sum_{j,k=0}^{m}D^{j}a_{jk}D^{k}u \,{=}\, \lambda{u}, x\in[0,b)$, where $D\,{=}\,i({d}/{dx})$, and where the coefficients $a_{jk}$, $j,k\in[0,m]$, with $a_{mm}\,{=}\,1$, satisfy certain regularity conditions and are chosen so that the matrix $(a_{jk})$ is hermitean. It is also assumed that $m\,{>}\,1$. More precisely, it is proved, using Paley–Wiener methods, that the corresponding spectral measure determines the equation up to conjugation by a function of modulus 1. The paper also discusses under which additional conditions the spectral measure uniquely determines the coefficients $a_{jk}$, $j,k\in[0,m]$, $j+k\neq{2m}$, as well as $b$ and the boundary conditions at 0 and at $b$ (if any).