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The geometric characterization, introduced by Chung and Yao, identifies node sets for total degree interpolation such that the Lagrange fundamental polynomials are products of linear factors. Sets satisfying the geometric characterization are usually called GC sets. Gasca and Maeztu conjectured that planar GC sets of degree n contain n + 1 collinear points. It has been shown that the conjecture holds for degrees not greater than 5 but it is still unsolved for general degree. One promising approach consists of studying the syzygies of the ideal of polynomials vanishing at the nodes. In order to describe syzygy matrices of GC sets, we analyze the extension of a GC set of degree n to a GC set of degree n + 1, by adding a n + 2 nodes on a line.

We introduce an extension of the Newton formula for bivariate generalized Berzolari-Radon sets and suggest a generalization of the divided differences for that kind of sets. We apply this formula to two bivariate problems where the nodes are distributed on lines or concentric circles respectively. Some examples are provided.

We analyze the critical length for design purposes of six-dimensional spaces invariant under translations and reflections containing the functions 1, cos t and sin t. These spaces also contain the first degree polynomials as well as trigonometric and/or hyperbolic functions. We identify the spaces whose critical length for design purposes is greater than 2π and find its maximum 4π. By a change of variables, two biparametric families of spaces arise. We call shape preservation region to the set of admissible parameters in order that the space has shape preserving representations for curves. We describe the shape preserving regions for both families.

Principal lattices are distributions of points in the plane obtained from a triangle by drawing equidistant parallel lines to the sides and taking the intersection points as nodes. Interpolation on principal lattices leads to particularly simple formulae. These sets were generalized by Lee and Phillips considering three-pencil lattices, generated by three linear pencils. Inspired by the addition of points on cubic curves and using duality, we introduce an addition of lines as a way of constructing lattices generated by cubic pencils. They include three-pencil lattices and then principal lattices. Interpolation on lattices generated by cubic pencils has the same good properties and simple formulae as on principal lattices.

In 1977 Chung and Yao introduced a geometric characterization in multivariate interpolation in order to identify distributions of points such that the Lagrange functions are products of real polynomials of first degree. We discuss and describe completely all these configurations up to degree 4 in the bivariate case. The number of lines containing more nodes than the degree is used for classifying these configurations.

For totally positive matrices, a new variation diminishing property on the sign of consecutive minors is obtained. this property is used to show shape preserving properties of curves generated by totally positive bases and, in particular, of B-spline curves.

A set of multivariate data is called strictly convex if there exists a strictly convex interpolant to these data. In this paper we characterize strict convexity of Lagrange and Hermite multivariate data by a simple property and show that for strict convex data and given smoothness requirements there exists a smooth strictly convex interpolant. We also show how to construct a multivariate convex smooth interpolant to scattered data.

This paper gives an affirmative answer to a conjecture given in [10]: the Bernstein basis has optimal shape preserving properties among all normalized totally positive bases for the space of polynomials of degree less than or equal ton over a compact interval. There is also a simple test to recognize normalized totally positive bases (which have good shape preserving properties), and the corresponding corner cutting algorithm to generate the Bezier polygon is also included. Among other properties, it is also proved that the Wronskian matrix of a totally positive basis on an interval [a, ∞) is also totally positive.