Published in honour of Professor Gu Chaohao, this work covers subjects closely related to differential geometry, partial differential equations and mathematical physics, the major areas in which Professor Gu has received notable achievements.

The papers in this text are concerned mainly with the development of methods for "sequencing" - determination of the order of the amino acids in proteins and of nucleotides in RNA and DNA. They describe the improvements in techniques and biological results revealed by the sequences.

This book gives a systematic and comprehensive presentation of the results concerning effective behavior of elastic and plastic plates with periodic or quasiperiodic structure. One of the chapters covers the hitherto available results concerning the averaging problems in the linear and nonlinear shell models. A unified approach to the problems studied is based on modern variational and asymptotic methods, including the methods of variational inequalities as well as homogenization techniques. Duality arguments are also exploited. A significant part of the book deals with problems important for engineering practice, such as: statical analysis of highly nonhomogeneous plates and shells for which common discretization techniques fail to be efficient, assessing stiffness reduction of cracked [00n/900m]s laminates, and assessing ultimate loads for perfectly plastic plates and shells composed of repeated segments. When possible, the homogenization formulas are cast in closed form expressions. The formulas presented in this manner are then used in constructing regularized formulations of the fundamental optimization problems for plates and shells, since the regularization concepts are based on introducing the composite regions for which microstructural properties play the role of new design variables

This volume is on initial-boundary value problems for parabolic partial differential equations of second order. It rewrites the problems as abstract Cauchy problems or evolution equations, and then solves them by the technique of elementary difference equations. Because of this, the volume assumes less background and provides an easy approach for readers to understand. Contents: Existence Theorems for Cauchy Problems; Existence Theorems for Evolution Equations (I); Linear Autonomous Parabolic Equations; Nonlinear Autonomous Parabolic Equations; Linear Non-autonomous Parabolic Equations; Nonlin

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference held in Cortona, October 6-9, 2004, that was organized as part of the project "Theoretical Physics of Nuclei and Many-Body Systems" involving 17 Italian Universities and sponsored by the Italian Ministery of Research and University. All invited papers on the main subjects of the project as well as all the individual contributions on special topics are included. As such these proceedings review the work performed in the last two years by the participating Italian community of nuclear theorists. In addition, in a panel international perspect