A generalized entropy functional was introduced in [T.-P. Liu, T. Yang, A new entropy functional for scalar conservation laws, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 52 (1999) 14271442] for the scalar hyperbolic conservation laws with convex flux function. This functional was crucially used in the functional approach to the L 1 stability study on the system of hyperbolic conservation laws when each characteristic field is either genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate. However, how to construct the generalized entropy functional for scalar conservation laws with general flux, and then how to apply the functional approach to the L 1 study on general systems are still open. In this paper, we construct a new nonlinear functional which gives some partial answer to this question and we expect the analysis will shed some light on the future investigation in this direction.

In this paper, we study the strong convergence of a sequence of uniform<i>L^p</i>_loc(<b>R</b><b>R</b>⁺) bounded approximate solutions {<i>u</i>(<i>x</i>,<i>t</i>)} to the following scalar conservation laws[formula]with initial data[formula]Without the convexity assumption and growth condition at infinity for<i>f</i>(<i>x</i>,<i>t</i>,<i>u</i>), we prove strong convergence of a subsequence of {<i>u</i>(<i>x</i>,<i>t</i>)}. Under a more general growth condition than those in the previous work, we prove the existence of weak solution for the equation. The result obtained here generalizes those in earlier work. Some applications of the results are also given at the end of this paper.

This work is concerned with our recently developed formalism of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This formalism extends the classical irreversible thermodynamics which leads to classical thermodynamics and can not describe physical phenomena with long relaxations. With the extended theory, we obtain a generalized hydrodynamic system which can be used to describe the non-Newtonian fluids, heat transfer beyond Fourier's law and fluid flow in very short temporal and spatial scales. We study the mathematical structure of the generalized hydrodynamic system and show that it possesses a nice conservation-dissipation structure and therefore is symmetrizable hyperbolic. Moreover, we rigorously justify that this generalized hydrodynamic system tends to the classical hydrodynamics when the relaxation times approach to zero. This shows that the classical hydrodynamics can be derived as an approximation of our generalized one.

We study a Maxwell-Bloch system describing the dynamics of single-longitudinal Raman lasers in the two transverse space dimensions. Raman lasing is generated by a coherent external pump laser, as a three-wave interaction involving two optical and one material wave. On the other hand, a two-level laser involves incoherent external pumping through, for example, an electrical discharge or flashlamp. Raman lasers have the advantage of being tunable and display a novel explicit nonlinear detuning between the pump and laser emission frequencies. Consequently these lasers exhibit much richer nonlinear dynamics. We establish the global existence of classical solutions, and show that for periodic domains the dynamics is governed by a global smooth attractor of finite dimensions. We explain the structures of nonlinear interactions and couplings that lead to the time asymptotic smoothing. We also construct

We study the critical and super-critical dissipative quasi-geostrophic equations in $\bR^ 2$ or $\bT^ 2$. Higher regularity of mild solutions with arbitrary initial data in H^{2-} is proved. As a corollary, we obtain a global existence result for the critical 2D quasi-geostrophic equations with periodic H^{2-} data. Some decay in time estimates are also provided.