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Given a Lagrangian sphere in a symplectic 4–manifold $(M, \omega)$ with $b^{+}=1$, we find embedded symplectic surfaces intersecting it minimally. When the Kodaira dimension  $\kappa$ of $(M,\omega)$ is $-\infty$, this minimal intersection property turns out to be very powerful for both the uniqueness and existence problems of Lagrangian spheres. On the uniqueness side, for a symplectic rational manifold and any class which is not characteristic, we show that homologous Lagrangian spheres are smoothly isotopic, and when the Euler number is less than 8, we generalize Hind and Evans’ Hamiltonian uniqueness in the monotone case. On the existence side, when  $\kappa=-\infty$, we give a characterization of classes represented by Lagrangian spheres, which enables us to describe the non-Torelli part of the symplectic mapping class group.

We give a new, simple algorithm for simultaneous degree elevation and knot insertion for B-spline curves. The method is based on the simple approach of computing derivatives using the control points, resampling the knot vector, and then computing the new control points from the derivatives. We compare our approach with previous algorithms and illustrate it with examples.

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It is a classical result of Sobolev spaces that any $H^1$ function has a well-defined $H^{1/2}$ trace on the boundary of a sufficient regular domain. We discuss its recent extensions given in \cite{TiDu16} in some heterogeneously localized nonlocal function spaces. The new trace theorems are stronger and more general than the classical result. They can be established essentially for all functions having only square integrability away from the boundary or in any compact subset of interior domain. Yet, the heterogeneous localization offers the necessary regularity precisely at the boundary to have well-defined traces. A consequence is that we may study associated Dirichlet type boundary value problems, as well as the coupling of local and nonlocal equations through co-dimension-1 interfaces. %Their derivations not only involve various extensions of classical inequalities but also %require new techniques absent from traditional approaches.