This volume comprises the proceedings of the "3rd International Conference on Distributed Parameter Systems" held at the Chorherrenstift Vorau (Styria), July 6-12, 1986. The aim of the meeting was to stimulate exchange of information between scientists working in the field of distributed parameter systems. The papers included in the proceedings present recent results and most of them include a survey on the background of the problem. Main topics considered in these papers are boundary control for hyperbolic systems, linear-quadratic control problems, robustness, stabilization, visco-elastic and flexible structures, hereditary systems.

Inhalt
Inverse problems in the modeling of vibrations of flexible beams.- Modelling and approximation for a viscoelastic control problem.- Pointwise stabilization for coupled quasilinear and linear wave equations.- Spectral realizations for delay systems.- A new approach to the L-Q-R problem for hyperbolic dynamics with boundary control.- On optimal control of functional differential systems.- Computational methods for optimal linear-quadratic compensators for infinite dimensional discrete-time systems.- Time delays and boundary feedback stabilization in one-dimensional viscoelasticity.- Strong convergence and convergence rates of approximating solutions for algebraic riccati equations in Hilbert spaces.- Pointwise quasi-Newton methods and some applications.- Optimization in bifurcation problems part I: Theory and illustration.- Optimization in bifurcation problems part II: Numerical method and applications.- Uniform boundary stabilization of homogeneous isotropic plates.- Finite element approximations of the wave equation with Dirichlet boundary data defined on a bounded domain in R2.- On boundary controllability of volterra integrodifferential equations in Hilbert spaces.- Representations for the optimal feedback control law for stable hereditary systems.- A stability radius for infinite dimensional systems.- Exact boundary controllability on L2(?)×H?1(?) of the wave equation with Dirichlet boundary control acting on a portion of the boundary ?, and related problems.- Shape variational solution for a Bernoulli like steady free boundary problem.