Positivity of cubic polynomials on intervals and positive spline interpolation

A criterion for the positivity of a cubic polynomial on a given interval is derived. By means of this result a necessary and sufficient condition is given under which cubicC ¹-spline interpolants are nonnegative. Further, since such interpolants are not uniquely determined, for selecting one of them the geometric curvature is minimized. The arising optimization problem is solved numerically via dualization.