The 39 papers in this collection are devoted mostly to the exact mathematical analysis of problems in continuum mechanics, but also to problems of a purely mathematical nature mainly connected to partial differential equations from continuum physics. All the papers are dedicated to J. Serrin and were originally published in the "Archive of Rational Mechanics and Analysis".

Mechanical engineering, an engineering discipline born of the needs of the industrial revolution, is once again asked to do its substantial share in the call for industrial renewal. The general call is urgent as we face profound issues of productivity and competitiveness that require engineering solutions, among others. The Mechanical Engineering Series is a series featuring graduate texts and research monographs intended to address the need for information in contemporary areas of mechanical engineering. The series is conceived as a comprehensive one that covers a broad range of concentrations important to mechanical engineering graduate education and research. We are fortunate to have a distinguished roster of consulting editors, each an expert in one of the areas of concentration. The names of the consulting editors are listed on the following page of this volume. The areas of concentration are applied mechanics, biomechanics, computational mechanics, dynamic systems and control, energetics, mechanics of materials, processing, thermal science, and tribology. Professor Winer, the consulting editor for tribology, and I are pleased to present this volume of the series: Laminar Viscous Flow, by Professor Constantinescu. The selection of this volume underscores again the interest of the Mechanical Engineering Series to provide our readers with topical monographs as well as graduate texts.

Gunter Lumer was an outstanding mathematician whose works have great influence on the research community in mathematical analysis and evolution equations. He was at the origin of the breath-taking development the theory of semigroups saw after the pioneering book of Hille and Phillips from 1957. This volume contains invited contributions presenting the state of the art of these topics and reflecting the broad interests of Gunter Lumer.

Qualitative Estimates For Partial Differential Equations: An Introduction describes an approach to the use of partial differential equations (PDEs) arising in the modelling of physical phenomena. It treats a wide range of differential inequality techniques applicable to problems arising in engineering and the natural sciences, including fluid and solid mechanics, physics, dynamics, biology, and chemistry. The book begins with an elementary discussion of the fundamental principles of differential inequality techniques for PDEs arising in the solution of physical problems, and then shows how these are used in research. Qualitative Estimates For Partial Differential Equations: An Introduction is an ideal book for students, professors, lecturers, and researchers who need a comprehensive introduction to qualitative methods for PDEs arising in engineering and the natural sciences.

With the purpose of promoting cooperative research involving the fields of mechanics and pure mathematics, the International Society for the Interaction of Mechanics and Mathematics (ISIMM) sponsors a series of Symposia. The ninth in this series (STAMM 94) took place in July 1994 at the University of Lisbon and emphasized the current trends in nonlinear mechanics, phase change problems (in cooperation with the European Science Foundation Scientific Programme on Mathematical Treatment of Free Boundary Problems), non Newtonian fluids, optimization in solid mechanics and numerical methods in continuum mechanics. This book collects a refereed selection of original contributions presented at STAMM 94, covering a large spectrum of current research in the above topics, from nonlinear elasticity to nonlinear fluids, from phase transitions to diffusion phenomena, and from structural optimization and homogenization to numerical schemes.

This volume contains the Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Navier-Stokes Equations and Related Nonlinear Problems. The conference was held in Funchal (Madeira, Portugal), on May 21-27, 1994. In addition to the editor, the organizers were Carlos Albuquerque (FC, University of Lisbon), Casimiro Silva (University of Madeira) and Juha Videman (1ST, Technical University of Lisbon). This meeting, following two other successful events of similar type held in Thurnau (Germany) in 1992 and in Cento (Italy) in 1993, brought together, to the majestically beautiful island of Madeira, more than 60 specialists from all around the world, of which about two thirds were invited lecturers. The main interest of the meeting was focused on the mathematical analysis of nonlinear phenomena in fluid mechanics. During the conference, we noticed that this area seems to provide, today more than ever, challenging and increasingly important problems motivating the research of both theoretical and numerical analysts. This volume collects 32 articles selected from the invited lectures and contributed papers given during the conference. The main topics covered include: Flows in Unbounded Domains; Flows in Bounded Domains; Compressible Fluids; Free Boundary Problems; Non-Newtonian Fluids; Related Problems and Numerical Approximations. The contributions present original results or new surveys on recent developments, giving directions for future research. I express my gratitude to all the authors and I am glad to recognize the scientific level and the actual interest of the articles.