Computation and Control IV

The fourth Conference on Computation and Control was held at Mon tana State University in Bozeman, Montana from August 3-9, 1994. These proceedings represent the continued evolution of the cross-disciplinary dia logue begun at the 1988 conference (Volume 1 of PSCT) and continued on a biennial basis in 1990 and 1992. Those proceedings are housed in Volume 11 of PSCT and Volume 15 of PSCT, respectively. In recent years considerable effort has been devoted to the problem of developing rigorous numerical methods and computational tools for con trol design and analysis. Although computational problems in control are extremely complex, these problems often have special structures that can be exploited to obtain both theoretical and computational results. More over, problems that arise from applications are best addressed by interdis ciplinary approaches where experts in various disciplines (e. g. numerical analysis, control theory, fluid dynamics) come together and create numer ical algorithms specifically for use in control design. This communication not only creates new mathematical tools, it often produces new research problems in the individual disciplines. This conference continues to bring together leading experts in control theory, numerical mathematics and var ious application areas to discuss recent developments in interdisciplinary approaches to computational control. The organizers acknowledge the generous support of the Montana State University Foundation, the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematical Sciences and the EPSCoR Program (Montana Group for Nonlinear Science).

The conference's interdisciplinary dialogue not only creates new mathematical tools, it often produces new research problems in the individual disciplines, aiming to develop rigorous numerical methods and computational tools for control design and analysis.

Well-Posedness for a One Dimensional Nonlinear Beam.- Modeling and Parameter Estimation for an Imperfectly Clamped Plate.- Discretization of Cost and Sensitivities in Shape Optimization.- Representation of Feedback Operators for Hyperbolic Systems.- Steady State Response to Burgers' Equation with Varying Viscosity.- A Weighted Mixed-Sensitivity H?-Control Design for Irrational Transfer Matrices.- Acuity of Observation of the Heat Equation on a Bounded Domain.- Designing Controllers for Infinite-Dimensional Systems with Finite-Dimensional Control System Design Tools.- Preserving Exponential Stability Under Approximation for Distributed Parameter Systems.- A Comparison of Estimation Methods for Hydraulic Conductivity Functions from Field Data.- An Adpative Stencil Finite Differencing Scheme for Linear First Order Hyperbolic Systems - A Preliminary Report.- Eigenvalue Approximations for Sturm-Liouville Differential Equations with Mixed Boundary Conditions.- Existence of Functional Gains for Parabolic Control Systems.- Binocular Observability.- Dynamics of Ocular Motion.- The Sinc-Galerkin Schwarz Alternating Method for Poisson's Equation.- A Cross Validation Method for First Kind Integral Equations.- Linear Control Theory, Splines and Interpolation.- Sinc Aproximation of Solution of Heat Equation with Discontinuous Initial Condition.- Exact Boundary Controllability of a Beam and Mass System.- A Multigrid Method for Total Variation-Based Image Denoising.- Parameter Estimation in Surface Catalysis with Reaction Diffusion Fronts.- Signal Processing and the Jacobi Group.