Dantzig's development of linear programming into one of the most applicable optimization techniques has spread interest in the algebra of linear inequalities, the geometry of polyhedra, the topology of convex sets, and the analysis of convex functions. It is the goal of this volume to provide a synopsis of these topics, and thereby the theoretical back ground for the arithmetic of convex optimization to be treated in a sub sequent volume. The exposition of each chapter is essentially independent, and attempts to reflect a specific style of mathematical reasoning. The emphasis lies on linear and convex duality theory, as initiated by Gale, Kuhn and Tucker, Fenchel, and v. Neumann, because it represents the theoretical development whose impact on modern optimi zation techniques has been the most pronounced. Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to two characteristic aspects of duality theory: conjugate functions or polarity on the one hand, and saddle points on the other. The Farkas lemma on linear inequalities and its generalizations, Motzkin's description of polyhedra, Minkowski's supporting plane theorem are indispensable elementary tools which are contained in chapters 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The treatment of extremal properties of polyhedra as well as of general convex sets is based on the far reaching work of Klee. Chapter 2 terminates with a description of Gale diagrams, a recently developed successful technique for exploring polyhedral structures.

This book contains lecture notes in pure and applied mathematics from the proceedings of an International Conference on Nonlinear Analysis and Applications, held at Memorial University of Newfoundland in June 1981. It includes information on fractional calculus and the Stieltjes transform.

This book contains lecture notes in pure and applied mathematics from the proceedings of an International Conference on Nonlinear Analysis and Applications, held at Memorial University of Newfoundland in June 1981. It includes information on fractional calculus and the Stieltjes transform.

This book contains a series of papers on some of the longstanding research problems of geometry, calculus of variations, and their applications. It is suitable for advanced graduate students, teachers, research mathematicians, and other professionals in mathematics.

Function theory, spectral decomposition of operators, probability, approximation, electrical and mechanical inverse problems, prediction of stochastic processes, the design of algorithms for signal-processing VLSI chips--these are among a host of important theoretical and applied topics illuminated by the classical moment problem. To survey some of these ramifications and the research which derives from them, the AMS sponsored the Short Course Moments in Mathematics at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, held in San Antonio, Texas, in January 1987. This volume contains the six lectures presented during that course. The papers are likely to find a wide audience, for they are expository, but nevertheless lead the reader to topics of current research. In his paper, Henry J. Landau sketches the main ideas of past work related to the moment problem by such mathematicians as Caratheodory, Herglotz, Schur, Riesz, and Krein and describes the way the moment problem has interconnected so many diverse areas of research. J. H. B. Kemperman examines the moment problem from a geometric viewpoint which involves a certain natural duality method and leads to interesting applications in linear programming, measure theory, and dilations. Donald Sarason first provides a brief review of the theory of unbounded self-adjoint operators then goes on to sketch the operator-theoretic treatment of the Hamburger problem and to discuss Hankel operators, the Adamjan-Arov-Krein approach, and the theory of unitary dilations. Exploring the interplay of trigonometric moment problems and signal processing, Thomas Kailath describes the role of Szego polynomials in linear predictive coding methods, parallel implementation, one-dimensional inverse scattering problems, and the Toeplitz moment matrices. Christian Berg contrasts the multi-dimensional moment problem with the one-dimensional theory and shows how the theory of the moment problem may be viewed as part of harmonic analysis on semigroups. Starting from a historical survey of the use of moments in probability and statistics, Persi Diaconis illustrates the continuing vitality of these methods in a variety of recent novel problems drawn from such areas as Wiener-Ito integrals, random graphs and matrices, Gibbs ensembles, cumulants and self-similar processes, projections of high-dimensional data, and empirical estimation.