Oscillation theory was born with Sturm's work in 1836. It has been flourishing for the past fifty years. Nowadays it is a full, self-contained discipline, turning more towards nonlinear and functional differential equations. Oscillation theory flows along two main streams. The first aims to study prop erties which are common to all linear differential equations. The other restricts its area of interest to certain families of equations and studies in maximal details phenomena which characterize only those equations. Among them we find third and fourth order equations, self adjoint equations, etc. Our work belongs to the second type and considers two term linear equations modeled after y(n) + p(x)y = O. More generally, we investigate LnY + p(x)y = 0, where Ln is a disconjugate operator and p(x) has a fixed sign. These equations enjoy a very rich structure and are the natural generalization of the Sturm-Liouville operator. Results about such equations are distributed over hundreds of research papers, many of them are reinvented again and again and the same phenomenon is frequently discussed from various points of view and different definitions of the authors. Our aim is to introduce an order into this plenty and arrange it in a unified and self contained way. The results are readapted and presented in a unified approach. In many cases completely new proofs are given and in no case is the original proof copied verbatim. Many new results are included.

The book presents a systematic and compact treatment of the qualitative theory of half-lineardifferential equations. It contains the most updated and comprehensive material and represents the first attempt to present the results of the rapidly developing theory of half-linear differential equations in a unified form. The main topics covered by the book are oscillation and asymptotic theory and the theory of boundary value problems associated with half-linear equations, but the book also contains a treatment of related topics like PDE's with p-Laplacian, half-linear difference equations and various more general nonlinear differential equations.- The first complete treatment of the qualitative theory of half-linear differential equations.- Comparison of linear and half-linear theory.- Systematic approach to half-linear oscillation and asymptotic theory.- Comprehensive bibliography and index.- Useful as a reference book in the topic.

A study of difference equations and inequalities. This second edition offers real-world examples and uses of difference equations in probability theory, queuing and statistical problems, stochastic time series, combinatorial analysis, number theory, geometry, electrical networks, quanta in radiation, genetics, economics, psychology, sociology, and

In this monograph, the authors present a compact, thorough, systematic, and self-contained oscillation theory for linear, half-linear, superlinear, and sublinear second-order ordinary differential equations. An important feature of this monograph is the illustration of several results with examples of current interest. This book will stimulate further research into oscillation theory. This book is written at a graduate level, and is intended for university libraries, graduate students, and researchers working in the field of ordinary differential equations.

This book provides a self-contained introduction to ordinary differential equations and dynamical systems suitable for beginning graduate students. The first part begins with some simple examples of explicitly solvable equations and a first glance at qualitative methods. Then the fundamental results concerning the initial value problem are proved: existence, uniqueness, extensibility, dependence on initial conditions. Furthermore, linear equations are considered, including the Floquet theorem, and some perturbation results. As somewhat independent topics, the Frobenius method for linear equations in the complex domain is established and Sturm–Liouville boundary value problems, including oscillation theory, are investigated. The second part introduces the concept of a dynamical system. The Poincaré–Bendixson theorem is proved, and several examples of planar systems from classical mechanics, ecology, and electrical engineering are investigated. Moreover, attractors, Hamiltonian systems, the KAM theorem, and periodic solutions are discussed. Finally, stability is studied, including the stable manifold and the Hartman–Grobman theorem for both continuous and discrete systems. The third part introduces chaos, beginning with the basics for iterated interval maps and ending with the Smale–Birkhoff theorem and the Melnikov method for homoclinic orbits. The text contains almost three hundred exercises. Additionally, the use of mathematical software systems is incorporated throughout, showing how they can help in the study of differential equations.

This book provides a clear exposition of the flourishing field of fixed point theory. Starting from the basics of Banach's contraction theorem, most of the main results and techniques are developed: fixed point results are established for several classes of maps and the three main approaches to establishing continuation principles are presented. The theory is applied to many areas of interest in analysis. Topological considerations play a crucial role, including a final chapter on the relationship with degree theory. Researchers and graduate students in applicable analysis will find this to be a useful survey of the fundamental principles of the subject. The very extensive bibliography and close to 100 exercises mean that it can be used both as a text and as a comprehensive reference work, currently the only one of its type.

First works related to the topics covered in this book belong to J. Delsarte and B. M. Le vitan and appeared since 1938. In these works, the families of operators that generalize usual translation operators were investigated and the corresponding harmonic analysis was constructed. Later, starting from 1950, it was noticed that, in such constructions, an important role is played by the fact that the kernels of the corresponding convolutions of functions are nonnegative and by the properties of the normed algebras generated by these convolutions. That was the way the notion of hypercomplex system with continu ous basis appeared. A hypercomplex system is a normed algebra of functions on a locally compact space Q-the "basis" of this hypercomplex system. Later, similar objects, hypergroups, were introduced, which have complex-valued measures on Q as elements and convolution defined to be essentially the convolution of functionals and dual to the original convolution (if measures are regarded as functionals on the space of continuous functions on Q). However, until 1991, the time when this book was written in Russian, there were no monographs containing fundamentals of the theory (with an exception of a short section in the book by Yu. M. Berezansky and Yu. G. Kondratiev [BeKo]). The authors wanted to give an introduction to the theory and cover the most important subsequent results and examples.

This book deals with the theory of convex and starlike biholomorphic mappings in several complex variables. The underlying theme is the extension to several complex variables of geometric aspects of the classical theory of univalent functions. This is the first book which systematically studies this topic. It gathers together, and presents in a unified manner, the current state of affairs for convex and starlike biholomorphic mappings in several complex variables. The majority of the results presented are due to the author, his co-workers and his students. Audience: This volume will be of interest to research mathematicians whose work involves several complex variables and one complex variable.

This book represents the first attempt at a unified picture for the pres ence of the Gibbs (or Gibbs-Wilbraham) phenomenon in applications, its analysis and the different methods of filtering it out. The analysis and filtering cover the familiar Gibbs phenomenon in Fourier series and integral representations of functions with jump discontinuities. In ad dition it will include other representations, such as general orthogonal series expansions, general integral transforms, splines approximation, and continuous as well as discrete wavelet approximations. The mate rial in this book is presented in a manner accessible to upperclassmen and graduate students in science and engineering, as well as researchers who may face the Gibbs phenomenon in the varied applications that in volve the Fourier and the other approximations of functions with jump discontinuities. Those with more advanced backgrounds in analysis will find basic material, results, and motivations from which they can begin to develop deeper and more general results. We must emphasize that the aim of this book (the first on the sUbject): to satisfy such a diverse audience, is quite difficult. In particular, our detailed derivations and their illustrations for an introductory book may very well sound repeti tive to the experts in the field who are expecting a research monograph. To answer the concern of the researchers, we can only hope that this book will prove helpful as a basic reference for their research papers.

This volume proposes and explores a new definition of logarithmic mappings as invertible selectors of multifunctions induced by linear operators with domains and ranges in an algebra over a field of characteristic zero. Several important previously published results are presented. Amongst the applications of logarithmic and antilogarithmic mappings are the solution of linear and nonlinear equations in algebras of square matrices. Some results may also provide numerical algorithms for the approximation of solutions. Audience: Research mathematicians and other scientists of other disciplines whose work involves the solution of equations.