Lawrence C. Evans

Bio: Lawrence C. Evans is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topic(s): Nonlinear system & Conservation law. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publication(s) receiving 25691 citation(s).

Partial Differential Equations

Abstract: Introduction Part I: Representation formulas for solutions: Four important linear partial differential equations Nonlinear first-order PDE Other ways to represent solutions Part II: Theory for linear partial differential equations: Sobolev spaces Second-order elliptic equations Linear evolution equations Part III: Theory for nonlinear partial differential equations: The calculus of variations Nonvariational techniques Hamilton-Jacobi equations Systems of conservation laws Appendices Bibliography Index.

User’s guide to viscosity solutions of second order partial differential equations

Abstract: The notion of viscosity solutions of scalar fully nonlinear partial differential equations of second order provides a framework in which startling comparison and uniqueness theorems, existence theorems, and theorems about continuous dependence may now be proved by very efficient and striking arguments. The range of important applications of these results is enormous. This article is a self-contained exposition of the basic theory of viscosity solutions

Stochastic Equations in Infinite Dimensions

Abstract: Part I. Foundations: 1. Random variables 2. Probability measures 3. Stochastic processes 4. The stochastic integral Part II. Existence and Uniqueness: 5. Linear equations with additive noise 6. Linear equations with multiplicative noise 7. Existence and uniqueness for nonlinear equations 8. Martingale solutions Part III. Properties of Solutions: 9. Markov properties and Kolmogorov equations 10. Absolute continuity and Girsanov's theorem 11. Large time behaviour of solutions 12. Small noise asymptotic.

Viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter examines viscosity solutions of Hamilton–Jacobi equations. The ability to formulate an existence and uniqueness result for generality requires the ability to discuss non differential solutions of the equation, and this has not been possible before. However, the existence assertions can be proved by expanding on the arguments in the introduction concerning the relationship of the vanishing viscosity method and the notion of viscosity solutions, so users can adapt known methods here. The uniqueness is then the main new point.

Acquiring linear subspaces for face recognition under variable lighting

Abstract: Previous work has demonstrated that the image variation of many objects (human faces in particular) under variable lighting can be effectively modeled by low-dimensional linear spaces, even when there are multiple light sources and shadowing. Basis images spanning this space are usually obtained in one of three ways: a large set of images of the object under different lighting conditions is acquired, and principal component analysis (PCA) is used to estimate a subspace. Alternatively, synthetic images are rendered from a 3D model (perhaps reconstructed from images) under point sources and, again, PCA is used to estimate a subspace. Finally, images rendered from a 3D model under diffuse lighting based on spherical harmonics are directly used as basis images. In this paper, we show how to arrange physical lighting so that the acquired images of each object can be directly used as the basis vectors of a low-dimensional linear space and that this subspace is close to those acquired by the other methods. More specifically, there exist configurations of k point light source directions, with k typically ranging from 5 to 9, such that, by taking k images of an object under these single sources, the resulting subspace is an effective representation for recognition under a wide range of lighting conditions. Since the subspace is generated directly from real images, potentially complex and/or brittle intermediate steps such as 3D reconstruction can be completely avoided; nor is it necessary to acquire large numbers of training images or to physically construct complex diffuse (harmonic) light fields. We validate the use of subspaces constructed in this fashion within the context of face recognition.

Level set evolution without re-initialization: a new variational formulation

Abstract: In this paper, we present a new variational formulation for geometric active contours that forces the level set function to be close to a signed distance function, and therefore completely eliminates the need of the costly re-initialization procedure. Our variational formulation consists of an internal energy term that penalizes the deviation of the level set function from a signed distance function, and an external energy term that drives the motion of the zero level set toward the desired image features, such as object boundaries. The resulting evolution of the level set function is the gradient flow that minimizes the overall energy functional. The proposed variational level set formulation has three main advantages over the traditional level set formulations. First, a significantly larger time step can be used for numerically solving the evolution partial differential equation, and therefore speeds up the curve evolution. Second, the level set function can be initialized with general functions that are more efficient to construct and easier to use in practice than the widely used signed distance function. Third, the level set evolution in our formulation can be easily implemented by simple finite difference scheme and is computationally more efficient. The proposed algorithm has been applied to both simulated and real images with promising results.