Recently, there has been a sharp increase in interest in variational inequalities. They are now one of the most challenging and dynamic topics of mathematics, and represent excellent tools in the study of real world problems. In fact, they cover a large variety of applications of extreme importance related to computer science, mathematical physics, engineering, statistics, economics, financial networks and generalized complementarity problems. In addition, Nash equilibrium problems, naturally associated with variational inequalities, experienced a surprising development. This leads to finding effective solutions to until now unsolved problems in numerous real life situations, such as oligopoly models, environmental problems, network problems, multiuser communication systems and infrastructure problems. Variational methods and game theory are also used in computer vision, machine learning and pattern recognition, in order to obtain intelligent systems able to reconstruct the geometric structure of a scene starting from images; to infer the motion of objects in videos; to make the semantic partitioning of pixels in an image, and make it possible to learn and infer visual data using Bayesian models based on graphs. The aim of the special issue is to collect both theoretical and computational issues, present results having the potential of solving concrete problems, and thus try to fill the gap between theory and practice.
Submissions to the special issue of the Journal of Global Optimization must include new, unpublished, original research. Papers must not have been previously published or currently submitted elsewhere. The quantitative results of the studies are expected to be supported by a robust statistical analysis demonstrating the significance of the results. Extended versions of selected papers presented during VINEPA 2016 will be considered too. The extended version must contain at least 40% new content compared to the workshop version. All papers must be written in English. Papers should be submitted electronically using the Journal of Global Optimization submission system and following the instructions for authors (http://www.springer.com/mathematics/journal/10898). When submitting, authors are requested to choose “Variational Inequalities, Nash Equilibrium Problems and Applications” in the manuscript type to indicate that the paper is intended for this special issue.
Guest editors will make an initial determination of the suitability and scope of all submissions. The submissions will be blind reviewed by at least three reviewers. The final decisions for all manuscripts will be taken by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal at the end of the review process.
Sebastiano Battiato
University of Catania
battiato@dmi.unict.it
Patrizia Daniele
University of Catania
daniele@dmi.unict.it
Giovanni Maria Farinella
University of Catania
gfarinella@dmi.unict.it
Sofia Giuffrè
Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria
sofia.giuffre@unirc.it
Laura Rosa Maria Scrimali
University of Catania
scrimali@dmi.unict.it