We consider the von Karman equations, which describe a vibrating plate either with a clamped boundary or with completely free boundary. In both cases we obtain a unique, classical solution. As the main tool we use a set of integral equations, which we deduce from the well known “variations of constants” formula.

We consider the hyperbolic equation uxy + c(x, y, u) =f(x, y) and the wave equation

We show that, under suitable conditions, there are bounded domains in which every solution to certain problems has a zero. Characteristic initial value problems and initial boundary value problems are considered.

Let A and B be closed linear operators on a Banach space X. Assume that ε(εI – A)−1f→f as |ε|→ ∞ for all f in X, ζ∊∑ ⊂ℂ. Under what conditions on B − A does the same relationship hold for B? When does [ε(εI − A)−1 − ε(εI − B)−1 ] f→ 0 in some stronger norm than that of X? The questions are discussed in an abstract setting and the results are generalised to other analytic functions of A. Applications are given to second order elliptic operators.

We prove that there exists an ᾱ > 0 such that for each 0 ≦ α ≦ ᾱ, there is at least one β = β(α) < 0 such that y“ − (x/2)y' + ey − 1 =0, y(0) = α, y'(0) = β has a solution y(x, α,β) satisfying the asymptotic property y(x, α,β)∼ −2 In x + Kα as x → ∞.

We consider the second order, linear, differential equation

where q is real-valued. In the case we calculate the Titchmarsh-Weyl m-function associated with (*).

In this paper we establish continuity of the interface of the weak solution to an elliptic-parabolic problem. The physical background is the theory of partially saturated fluid flows in porous media. Our method is based on the maximum principle for parabolic equations. An essential assumption is that the flow is one-dimensional.

The homogenisation of a linearly viscoelastic composite material is performed without any periodicity assumptions and with no restrictions on the initial data. A term of fading memory is evidenced in the expression of the homogenised stress tensor.

The equation studied here is Lny +p(x)y = 0, where Ln is a disconjugate differential operator and p(x) is of a fixed sign. It is shown that certain minors of the wronskian of this equation satisfy a very similar differential equation Mnz +p(x)z =0. We prove that some properties of the original equation which are essential for oscillation theory are inherited by the solutions of the second one.

We present a generalisation of the continuous Gronwall inequality and show its use in bounding solutions of discrete inequalities of a form that arise when analysing the convergence of product integration methods for Volterra integral equations. We then use these ideas to prove convergence of a numerical method which is effective in approximating Volterra integral equations of the second kind with weakly singular kernels.

Let E be a Hausdorff locally convex space, Q a convex closed subset of E and U an open subset of Q. We develop an index theory for a class of locally compact maps f: U → E for which the usual assumption f(U) ⊂ Q is replaced by an appropriate “pushing condition”. Moreover, from this index theory, we deduce a general continuation principle and some global results for nonlinear eigenvalue problems.

We consider nonlinear singular Volterra integral equations of the second kind. We generalise the transformation method introduced in Part I of this paper [6] to cope with both the nonlinearity and slightly more general singular kernels. We also consider a particular class of nonlinear equation for which the solution behaviour is known. Using this a priori knowledge, we propose a modification of the transformation technique which results in a numerical method with good asymptotic stability properties. Applying the general theory of Part I of this paper, we prove convergence of this scheme.

We study the large-time behaviour of solutions to the initial value problem for hyperbolic-parabolic systems of conservation equations in one space dimension. It is proved that under suitable assumptions a unique solution exists for all time t ≧ 0, and converges to a given constant state at the rate t − ¼ as t → ∞. Moreover, it is proved that the solution approaches the superposition of the non-linear and linear diffusion waves constructed in terms of the self-similar solutions to the Burgers equation and the linear heat equation at the rate t − ½ +α, α > 0, as t →∞. The proof is essentially based on the fact that for t → ∞ the solution to the hyperbolic-parabolic system is well approximated by the solution to a semilinear uniformly parabolic system whose viscosity matrix is uniquely determined from the original system. The results obtained are applicable straightforwardly to the equations of viscous (or inviscid) heat-conductive fluids.