Theoretical and numerical analysis on multispectral bioluminescence tomography

Recently, molecular imaging has been rapidly developed to studyphysiological and pathological processes in vivo at the cellularand molecular levels. Among molecular imaging modalities, opticalimaging has attracted a major attention for its unique advantages.In this paper, we establish a mathematical framework for multispectralbioluminescence tomography (BLT) that allows simultaneous studiesof multiple optical reporters. We show solution existence, uniquenessand continuous dependence on data as well as the limiting behaviourswhen the regularization parameter approaches zero or when thepenalty parameter approaches infinity. Then, we propose twonumerical schemes for multispectral BLT and derive error estimatesfor the corresponding solutions.     

Order conditions for linearly implicit fractional step Runge Kutta methods

^{In this paper, we study the consistency of a variant of fractionalstep Runge–Kutta methods. These methods are designed tointegrate efficiently semi-linear multidimensional parabolicproblems by means of linearly implicit time integration processes.Such time discretization procedures are also related to a splittingof the space differential operator (or the spatial discretizationof it) as a sum of ‘simpler’ linear differentialoperators and a nonlinear term.}     

OPTIMAL HARVESTING POLICY FOR INSHORE-OFFSHORE FISHERY MODEL WITH IMPULSIVE DIFFUSION

This article studies the inshore-offshore fishery model with impulsive diffusion. The existence and global asymptotic stability of both the trivial periodic solution and the positive periodic solution are obtained. The complexity of this system is also analyzed. Moreover, the optimal harvesting policy are given for the inshore subpopulation, which includes the maximum sustainable yield and the corresponding harvesting effort.     

On the solution of Maxwell's equations in polygonal domains

This paper is concerned with the structure of the singular and regular parts of the solution of time‐harmonic Maxwell's equations in polygonal plane domains and their effective numerical treatment. The asymptotic behaviour of the solution near corner points of the domain is studied by means of discrete Fourier transformation and it is proved that the solution of the boundary value problem does not belong locally to H² when the boundary of the domain has non‐acute angles. A splitting of the solution into a regular part belonging to the space H², and an explicitly described singular part is presented. For the numerical treatment of the boundary value problem, we propose a finite element discretization which combines local mesh grading and the singular field methods and derive a priori error estimates that show optimal convergence as known for the classical finite element method for problems with regular solutions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating Sampling Errors in REA Survey: A Model Approach for the Synthetic Presentation of Results for Main Variables Involved in Economic Analysis

A new sample business survey for agriculture, the REA survey, and a project of integration with the FADN network (RICA in Italy) have significantly changed the production of statistical information nowadays available with reference to the agricultural sector. On the basis of this relevant information, new economic analyses are being developed on farms’ performance, agricultural households’ income and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this paper the authors estimate the relationship between the levels of variables of interest and their sampling errors using models in order to improve the accessibility of the information on estimates accuracy to the final users (agricultural analysts, policy makers). The paper is the result of a joint research of the three authors. Sections 1–3 and 6 by Pizzoli, Sects. 4 and 5 by Rondinelli, Sect. 7 by Filiberti, conclusions joint to the three authors.     

Commutators, C0-semigroups and resolvent estimates

We study the existence and the continuity properties of the boundary values on the real axis of the resolvent of a self-adjoint operator H in the framework of the conjugate operator method initiated by Mourre. We allow the conjugate operator A to be the generator of a C₀-semigroup (finer estimates require A to be maximal symmetric) and we consider situations where the first commutator [H,iA] is not comparable to H. The applications include the spectral theory of zero mass quantum field models.     

A lower bound on the performance of the quadratic discriminant function

The quadratic discriminant function is often used to separate two classes of points in a multidimensional space. When the two classes are normally distributed, this results in the optimum separation. In some cases however, the assumption of normality is a poor one and the classification error is increased. The current paper derives an upper bound for the classification error due to a quadratic decision surface. The bound is strict when the class means and covariances and the quadratic discriminant surface satisfy certain specified symmetry conditions.     

New Kamenev-type oscillation criteria for second-order nonlinear differential equations with damping

Some new oscillation criteria are established for the nonlinear damped differential equation (r(t)y′)′+p(t)y′+q(t)f(y)=0 that are different from most known ones in the sense that they are based on a class of new functions Φ(t,s,r) defined in the sequel. Our results are sharper than some previous results which can be seen by the examples at the end of this paper.     

Optimally Stable Multivariate Bases

We show that the tensor product B-spline basis and the triangular Bernstein basis are in some sense best conditioned among all nonnegative bases for the spaces of tensor product splines and multivariate polynomials, respectively. We also introduce some new condition numbers which are analogs of component-wise condition numbers for linear systems introduced by Skeel.