Continuous selections and convergence of best Lp –approximations in subspaces of spline functions

The chief purpose of this paper is to study the problem of existence of continuous selections for the metric projection and of convergence of best L_p–approximations in subspaces of polynomial spline functions defined on a real compact interval I. Nürnberger-Sommer 8] have shown that there exists a continuous selection s if and only if the numberof knots k is less than or equal to the order m of the splines. Using their construction of s the author 12] has proved that the sequence of best L_p–approximations of f converges to s(f) as ρ→∞ for every continuous function f. The main results of this paper say that also in the case when k>m there exists always a continuous selection s (it is even pointwise-Lipschitz-continuous and quasi-linear) provided that the approximation problem is restricted to certain subsets I_epsilon; of I. In addition it is shown that anologously as for k≤m the sequence of best L_papproximations of f converges to s(f) for every continuous function f on Iε