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We study energy-driven nonlocal pattern forming systems with opposing interactions. Selections are drawn from the area of Quantum Physics, and nonlocalities are present via Coulombian type interactions. More precisely, we study Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Von Weizsacker (TFDW) type models, which are mass-constrained variational problems. The TFDW model is a physical model describing ground state electron configurations of many-body systems. First, we consider minimization problems of the TFDW type, both for general external potentials and for perturbations of the Newtonian potential satisfying mild conditions. We describe the structure of minimizing sequences, and obtain a more precise characterization of patterns in minimizing sequences for the TFDW functionals regularized by long-range perturbations. Second, we consider the TFDW model and the Liquid Drop Model with external potential, a model proposed by Gamow in the context of nuclear structure. It has been observed that the TFDW model and the Liquid Drop Model exhibit many of the same properties, especially in regard to the existence and nonexistence of minimizers. We show that, under a "sharp interface'' scaling of the coefficients, the TFDW energy with constrained mass Gamma-converges to the Liquid Drop model, for a general class of external potentials. Finally, we present some consequences for global minimizers of each model. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>We study Ginzburg–Landau equations for a complex vector order parameter to a two-component system. We discuss the existence, uniqueness, asymptotics, monotonicity and stability of solutions by extending Alama-Bronsard-Mironescu's results in a more general case.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis is concerned with mathematical modelling and optimal control of constrained systems. Each of the systems under consideration is a system that can be controlled by one of the variables, and this control is subject to constraints. First, we consider middle-distance running where a runner's horizontal propulsive force is the control which is constrained to be within a given range. Middle-distance running is typically a strategy-intensive race as slipstreaming effects come into play since speeds are still relatively fast and runners can leave their starting lane. We formulate a two-runner coupled model and determine optimal strategies using optimal control theory. Second, we consider two applications of control systems with delay related to R&D expenditure. The first of these applications relates to the defence industry. The second relates to the pharmaceutical industry. Both applications are characterised by a long delay between initial investment in R&D and seeing the benefits of R&D realised. We formulate models tailored to each application and use optimal control theory to determine the optimal proportion of available funds to invest in R&D over a given time horizon. Third, we consider a mathematical model of urban burglary based on the Short model. We make some modifications to this model including the addition of deterrence due to police officer presence. Police officer density is the control variable, which is constrained due to a finite number of police officers. We look at different control strategies for the police and their effect on burglary hot-spot formation.

This thesis is devoted to the mathematical analysis of models describing the energy of defects in crystalline solids via variational methods. The first part of this work studies a discrete model describing the energy of a point defect in a one dimensional chain of atoms. We derive an expansion of the ground state energy using Gamma-convergence, following previous work on similar models [BDMG99,BC07,SSZ11]. The main novelty here is an explicit characterisation of the first order limit as the solution of a variational problem in an infinite lattice. Analysing this variational problem, we prove a regularity result for the perturbation caused by the defect, and demonstrate the order of the next term in the expansion. The second main topic is a discrete model describing screw dislocations in body centred cubic crystals. We formulate an anti plane lattice model which describes the energy difference between deformations and, using the framework defined in [AO05], provide a kinematic description of the Burgers vector, which is a key geometric quantity used to describe dislocations. Apart from the anti plane restriction, this model is invariant under all the natural symmetries of the lattice and in particular allows for the creation and annihilation of dislocations. The energy difference formulation enables us to provide a clear definition of what it means to be a stable deformation. The main results of the analysis of this model are then first, a proof that deformations with unit net Burgers vector exist as globally stable states in an infinite body, and second, that deformations containing multiple screw dislocations exist as locally stable states in both infinite bodies and finite convex bodies. To prove the former result, we establish coercivity with respect to the elastic strain, and exploit a concentration compactness principle. In the latter case, we use a form of the inverse function theorem, proving careful estimates on the residual and stability of an ansatz which combines continuum linear elasticity theory with an atomistic core correction.

A multiple-valued function is a "function" that assumes two or more distinct values in its range for at least one point in its domain. While these "functions" are not functions in the normal sense of being single-valued, the usage is so common that there is no way to dislodge it. This thesis is devoted to a particular class of multiple-valued functions: Q-valued functions. A Q-valued function is essentially a rule assigning Q unordered and not necessarily distinct points of R^n to each element of R^m. This object is one of the key ingredients of Almgren's 1700 pages proof that the singular set of an m-dimensional mass minimizing integral current in R^n has dimension at most m-2. We start by developing a decomposition theory and show for instance when a continuous Q-valued function can or cannot be seen as Q "glued" continuous classical functions. Then, the decomposition theory is used to prove intrinsically a Rademacher type theorem for Lipschitz Q-valued functions. A couple of Lipschitz extension theorems are also obtained for partially defined Lipschitz Q-valued functions. The second part is devoted to a Peano type result for a particular class of nonconvex-valued differential inclusions. To the best of the author's knowledge this is the first theorem, in the nonconvex case, where the existence of a continuously differentiable solution is proved under a mere continuity assumption on the corresponding multifunction. An application to a particular class of nonlinear differential equations is included. The third part is devoted to the calculus of variations in the multiple-valued framework. We define two different notions of Dirichlet nearly minimizing Q-valued functions, generalizing Dirichlet energy minimizers studied by Almgren. Hölder regularity is obtained for these nearly minimizers and we give some examples showing that the branching phenomena can be much worse in this context.

In this dissertation we investigate the behavior of radially symmetric non-Euclidean plates of thickness t with constant negative Gaussian curvature. We present a complete study of these plates using the Föppl-von Kármán and Kirchhoff reduced theories of elasticity. Motivated by experimental results, we focus on deformations with a periodic profile. For the Föppl-von Kármán model, we prove rigorously that minimizers of the elastic energy converge to saddle shaped isometric immersions. In studying this convergence, we prove rigorous upper and lower bounds for the energy that scale like the thickness t squared. Furthermore, for deformation with n-waves we prove that the lower bound scales like nt² while the upper bound scales like n²t². We also investigate the scaling with thickness of boundary layers where the stretching energy is concentrated with decreasing thickness. For the Kichhoff model, we investigate isometric immersions of disks with constant negative curvature into R³, and the minimizers for the bending energy, i.e. the L² norm of the principal curvatures over the class of W^2,2 isometric immersions. We show the existence of smooth immersions of arbitrarily large geodesic balls in H² into R³. In elucidating the connection between these immersions and the nonexistence/ singularity results of Hilbert and Amsler, we obtain a lower bound for the L^∞ norm of the principal curvatures for such smooth isometric immersions. We also construct piecewise smooth isometric immersions that have a periodic profile, are globally W^2,2, and numerically have lower bending energy than their smooth counterparts. The number of periods in these configurations is set by the condition that the principal curvatures of the surface remain finite and grow approximately exponentially with the radius of the disc.

Nonrigid image registration has received much attention in the medical imaging and computer vision research communities, because it enables a wide variety of applications. Feature tracking, segmentation, classification, temporal image differencing, tumour growth estimation, and pharmacokinetic modeling are examples of the many tasks that are enhanced by the use of aligned imagery. Over the years, the medical imaging and computer vision communties have developed and refined image registration techniques in parallel, often based on similar assumptions or underlying paradigms. This thesis focuses on variational registration, which comprises a subset of nonrigid image registration. It is divided into chapters that are based on fundamental aspects of the variational registration problem: image dissimilarity measures, changing overlap regions, regularizers, and computational solution strategies. Key contributions include the development of local versions of standard dissimilarity measures, the handling of changing overlap regions in a manner that is insensitive to the amount of non-interesting background information, the combination of two standard taxonomies of regularizers, and the generalization of solution techniques based on Fourier methods and the Demons algorithm for use with many regularizers. To illustrate and validate the various contributions, two sets of example imagery are used: 3D CT, MR, and PET images of the brain as well as 3D CT images of lung cancer patients.

In the spontaneous curvature model for two-phase lipid bilayer membranes the shape of vesicles is governed by a combination of an elastic bending energy and an interface energy that penalises the size of phase boundaries. Each lipid phase induces a preferred curvature to the membrane surface, and these curvatures as well as phase boundaries may lead to the development of kinks. In a rotationally symmetric setting we introduce a family of energies for smooth surfaces and phase fields for the lipid components and study convergence to a sharp-interface limit, which depends on the choice of the bending parameters of the phase field model. We prove that, if kinks are excluded, our energies $Gamma$-converge to the commonly used sharp-interface spontaneous curvature energy with the additional assumption of $C^1$-regularity across interfaces. For a choice of parameters such that kinks may appear, we obtain a limit that coincides with the $Gamma$-limit on all reasonable membranes and extends the classical model by assigning a bending energy also to kinks. We illustrate the theoretical result by some numerical examples.

This thesis is concerned with investigating new methods for the analysis of large-scale dynamical systems using convex optimization. The proposed methodology is based on composite Lyapunov theory and is computationally implemented using polynomial programming techniques. The main result of this work is the development of a system decomposition framework that makes it possible to analyze systems that are of such a scale that traditional methods cannot cope with. We begin by addressing the problem of model invalidation. A barrier certificate method for invalidating models in the presence of uncertain data is presented for both continuous and discrete time models. It is shown how a re-parameterization of the time dependent variables can improve the numerical conditioning of the underlying optimization problem. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of an automated dynamical system decomposition framework that permits us to verify the stability of systems that typically have a state dimension large enough to render traditional computational methods intractable. The underlying idea is to decompose a system into a set of lower order subsystems connected in feedback in such a manner that composite methods for stability verification may be employed. What is unique about the algorithm presented is that it takes into account both dynamics and the topology of the interconnection graph. In the first instance we illustrate the methodology with an ecological network and primal Internet congestion control scheme. The versatility of the decomposition framework is also highlighted when it is shown that when applied to a model of the EGF-MAPK signaling pathway it is capable of identifying biologically relevant subsystems in addition to stability verification. Finally we introduce stability metrics for interconnected dynamical systems based on the theory of dissipativity. We conclude by outlining a clustering based decomposition algorithm that explicitly takes into account the input and output dynamics when determining the system decomposition.