In a paper from 1976, Berg, Christensen and Ressel prove that the closure of the cone of sums of squares $\sum \mathbb{R}[\underline{X}]^2$ in the polynomial ring $\mathbb{R}[\underline{X}] := \mathbb{R}[X_1,\dots,X_n]$ in the topology induced by the $\ell_1$-norm is equal to $\operatorname{Pos}([-1,1]^n)$, the cone consisting of all polynomials which are non-negative on the hypercube $[-1,1]^n$. The result is deduced as a corollary of a general result, established in the same paper, which is valid for any commutative semigroup. In later work, Berg and Maserick and Berg, Christensen and Ressel establish an even more general result, for a commutative semigroup with involution, for the closure of the cone of sums of squares of symmetric elements in the weighted $\ell_1$-seminorm topology associated to an absolute value. In the present paper we give a new proof of these results which is based on Jacobi's representation theorem from 2001. At the same time, we use Jacobi's representation theorem to extend these results from sums of squares to sums of $2d$-powers, proving, in particular, that for any integer $d\ge 1$, the closure of the cone of sums of $2d$-powers $\sum \mathbb{R}[\underline{X}]^{2d}$ in $\mathbb{R}[\underline{X}]$ in the topology induced by the $\ell_1$-norm is equal to $\operatorname{Pos}([-1,1]^n)$.

We study an even order system boundary value problem with periodic boundary conditions. By establishing the existence of a positive eigenvalue of an associated linear system Sturm-Liouville problem, we obtain new conditions for the boundary value problem to have a positive solution. Our major tools are the Krein-Rutman theorem for linear spectra and the fixed point index theory for compact operators.

In this paper, some criteria for the existence of positive solutions of a class of systems of impulsive dynamic equations on time scales are obtained by using a fixed point theorem in cones.

In this paper we characterize the positive definite measures with discrete Fourier transform. As an application we provide a characterization of pure point diffraction in locally compact Abelian groups.

We prove the equivalence of three definitions given by different comparison relations for infiniteness of positive elements in simple $C^*$-algebras.

The well-known Falkner--Skan equation is one of the most important equations in laminar boundary layer theory and is used to describe the steady two-dimensional flow of a slightly viscous incompressible fluid past wedge shaped bodies of angles related to $\lambda\pi/2$, where $\lambda\in \mathbb R$ is a parameter involved in the equation. It is known that there exists $\lambda^{*}<0$ such that the equation with suitable boundary conditions has at least one positive solution for each $\lambda\ge \lambda^{*}$ and has no positive solutions for $\lambda<\lambda^{*}$. The known numerical result shows $\lambda^{*}=-0.1988$. In this paper, $\lambda^{*}\in [-0.4,-0.12]$ is proved analytically by establishing a singular integral equation which is equivalent to the Falkner--Skan equation. The equivalence result provides new techniques to study properties and existence of solutions of the Falkner--Skan equation.

In this paper we investigate the existence of positive solutions for nonlinear elliptic problems driven by the $p$-Laplacian with a nonsmooth potential (hemivariational inequality). Under asymptotic conditions that make the Euler functional indefinite and incorporate in our framework the asymptotically linear problems, using a variational approach based on nonsmooth critical point theory, we obtain positive smooth solutions. Our analysis also leads naturally to multiplicity results.

In this paper, we give some conditions to judge when a system of Hermitian quadratic forms has a real linear combination which is positive definite or positive semi-definite. We also study some related geometric and topological properties of the moduli space.

Using weighted Delsarte surfaces, we give examples of $K3$ surfaces in positive characteristic whose formal Brauer groups have height equal to $5$, $8$ or $9$. These are among the four values of the height left open in the article of Yui \cite{Y}.

Let $H$ be a complex Hilbert space, and $\HH$ be the real linear space of bounded selfadjoint operators on $H$. We study linear maps $\phi\colon \HH \to \HH$ leaving invariant various properties such as invertibility, positive definiteness, numerical range, {\it etc}. The maps $\phi$ are not assumed {\it a priori\/} continuous. It is shown that under an appropriate surjective or injective assumption $\phi$ has the form $X \mapsto \xi TXT^*$ or $X \mapsto \xi TX^tT^*$, for a suitable invertible or unitary $T$ and $\xi\in\{1, -1\}$, where $X^t$ stands for the transpose of $X$ relative to some orthonormal basis. Examples are given to show that the surjective or injective assumption cannot be relaxed. The results are extended to complex linear maps on the algebra of bounded linear operators on $H$. Similar results are proved for the (real) linear space of (selfadjoint) operators of the form $\alpha I+K$, where $\alpha$ is a scalar and $K$ is compact.

We construct unbounded positive $C^2$-solutions of the equation $\Delta u + K u^{(n + 2)/(n - 2)} = 0$ in $\R^n$ (equipped with Euclidean metric $g_o$) such that $K$ is bounded between two positive numbers in $\R^n$, the conformal metric $g=u^{4/(n-2)}g_o$ is complete, and the volume growth of $g$ can be arbitrarily fast or reasonably slow according to the constructions. By imposing natural conditions on $u$, we obtain growth estimate on the $L^{2n/(n-2)}$-norm of the solution and show that it has slow decay.

We obtain a homotopy splitting of the forget control map for controlled homeomorphisms over closed manifolds of nonpositive curvature.

Let $A_i$, $B_i$ and $X_i$ $(i=1, 2, \dots, n)$ be operators on a separable Hilbert space. It is shown that if $f$ and $g$ are nonnegative continuous functions on $[0,\infty)$ which satisfy the relation $f(t)g(t) =t$ for all $t$ in $[0,\infty)$, then $$ \Biglvert \,\Bigl|\sum^n_{i=1} A^*_i X_i B_i \Bigr|^r \,\Bigrvert^2 \leq \Biglvert \Bigl( \sum^n_{i=1} A^*_i f (|X^*_i|)^2 A_i \Bigr)^r \Bigrvert \, \Biglvert \Bigl( \sum^n_{i=1} B^*_i g (|X_i|)^2 B_i \Bigr)^r \Bigrvert $$ for every $r>0$ and for every unitarily invariant norm. This result improves some known Cauchy-Schwarz type inequalities. Norm inequalities related to the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality and the classical Heinz inequalities are also obtained.