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In the analysis of a discrete nonlinear system, one of the important problems is to derive a steady solution for the nonlinear difference equation characterizing the system. However, the study for the solution method of the difference system has not been sufficient, and examples of the methods being applied to the parametric oscillation are few. This paper presents a method which derives the steady solution for the quasi-linear difference equation containing a periodic parametric excitation in its weakly nonlinear function with small parameter ∊. In this method the harmonic balance and the averaging methods used in the solution of the continuous nonlinear differential equation are ape plied to the discrete system. Since the non-linear term in the equation is bounded by ∊, the discrete waveform in the steady state is almost sinusoidal. This paper presents numerical examples for the solutions by the two methods, assuming the solution as the discrete oscillation corresponding to the sinusoid of the continuous system. As a result, the same solution is obtained by either method. Comparing the result with the output waveform obtained directly by the numerical calculation for the fundamental equation, the validity of the approximate solution by the proposed method was verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cross-curricular structured-probe task-based clinical interview study with 44 pairs of third year high-school mathematics students, most of whom were high achieving, was conducted to investigate their approaches to a variety of algebra problems. This paper presents results from three problems that were posed in symbolic form. Two problems are TIMSS items (a linear inequality and an equation involving square roots). The other problem involves square roots. We found that the majority of student pairs used symbol manipulation when solving the problems, and while many students seemed to prefer symbolic over graphical and tabular representations in their first attempt at solving the problems, we found that it was common for student pairs to use more than one strategy throughout the course of their solving. Students `use of graphing calculators to solve the problems is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider meshless collocation methods for the numerical solution of transport processes described by hyperbolic conservation laws. The future goal is the construction of a robust and reliable meshfree discretization method for the equations of gas dynamics in complex geometries. In this paper we start with the simplest scalar model problems and analyze basic problems occurring in the grid-free approach. A topological condition on clouds of points is derived and several possible versions of a generalized Lax-Friedrichs scheme are discussed with respect to their numerical dissipation. A moving least-squares approach is followed to construct a positive discretization for solutions with shocks which is thoroughly analyzed and applied to test problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the superconvergence property of isoparametric bilinear finite elements is considered. A new superconvergence recovery method for isoparametric bilinear finite elements is discovered on the four vertices and the four midpoints of the edges of the elements for piecewise strongly regular quadrilateral subdivisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a hybrid Trefftz (HT) element approach for the numerical solution of transient plate bending problems. In the proposed method, the dynamic plate equation is first discretized with respect to time and then the resulting set of elliptic equations is solved by the corresponding time independent hybrid Trefftz element approach. Two examples are considered to assess the effectiveness of the numerical method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the comments of Anand Prakash on the paper entitled "On the Use and Error of Approximation in the Domenico (1987) Solution," by Michael R. West, Bernard H. Kueper, and Michael J. Ungs. The author founds mathematical inconsistencies in the Domenico equations however, they are easy to use and provides reasonable screening level results for most practical situation. He also presents the comments generated from studying West's paper.