The

Research Seminar in

continues to meet in G5 (Rolla Building)

on Wednesday, Nov 10, 1999, 3:30 pm.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.

Martin Bohner will talk on  
Positivity of Block Tridiagonal Matrices

Abstract: This talk relates disconjugacy of linear Hamiltonian difference systems (and hence positive definiteness of certain discrete quadratic functionals) to positive definiteness of some block tridiagonal matrices associated with these systems and functionals. As a special case of a Hamiltonian system, Sturm-Liouville difference equations are considered, and analogous results are obtained for these important objects also.