Algebraic splines in locally convex spaces

In a vector space of continuous functions, a variational solution of a finite system of linear functional equations is found. The locally convex topology on the vector space and the properties of the objective functional required for obtaining the solution in the form of a decomposition in the basis dual to the family of functionals of the system are determined. The basis elements are calculated exactly and called basis algebraic splines; their linear span is called the space of algebraic splines in the corresponding locally convex space.Translated from Matematicheskie Zametki, vol. 77, no. 3, 2005, pp. 339–353.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by A. P. Kolesnikov.This revised version was published online in April 2005 with a corrected issue number.