It is the main aim of this book to develop at an accessible, moderate level an $L_2$ theory for elliptic differential operators of second order on bounded smooth domains in Euclidean n-space, including a priori estimates for boundary-value problems in terms of (fractional) Sobolev spaces on domains and on their boundaries, together with a related spectral theory. The presentation is preceded by an introduction to the classical theory for the Laplace-Poisson equation, and some chapters provide required ingredients such as the theory of distributions, Sobolev spaces and the spectral theory in Hilbert spaces. The book grew out of two-semester courses the authors have given several times over a period of ten years at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. It is addressed to graduate students and mathematicians who have a working knowledge of calculus, measure theory and the basic elements of functional analysis (as usually covered by undergraduate courses) and who are seeking an accessible introduction to some aspects of the theory of function spaces and its applications to elliptic equations.

A condensing (or densifying) operator is a mapping under which the image of any set is in a certain sense more compact than the set itself. The degree of noncompactness of a set is measured by means of functions called measures of noncompactness. The contractive maps and the compact maps [i.e., in this Introduction, the maps that send any bounded set into a relatively compact one; in the main text the term "compact" will be reserved for the operators that, in addition to having this property, are continuous, i.e., in the authors' terminology, for the completely continuous operators] are condensing. For contractive maps one can take as measure of noncompactness the diameter of a set, while for compact maps can take the indicator function of a family of non-relatively com pact sets. The operators of the form F( x) = G( x, x), where G is contractive in the first argument and compact in the second, are also condensing with respect to some natural measures of noncompactness. The linear condensing operators are characterized by the fact that almost all of their spectrum is included in a disc of radius smaller than one. The examples given above show that condensing operators are a sufficiently typical phenomenon in various applications of functional analysis, for example, in the theory of differential and integral equations. As is turns out, the condensing operators have properties similar to the compact ones.

This book is dedicated to a theory of traces and determinants on embedded algebras of linear operators, where the trace and determinant are extended from finite rank operators by a limit process. The self-contained material should appeal to a wide group of mathematicians and engineers, and is suitable for teaching.

Six papers deal with interrelated problems of modern operator theory, complex analysis, and system theory at a level accessible to advanced mathematicians and engineers. They provide a cross-section of recent advances in the understanding of the theory of time-varying systems and time-varying of analogues of interpolation problems. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book describes the interplay between orthonormal expansions and Banach space geometry.