Ming-Jun Lai's Homepage

Multivariate Splines My main interest lies in the theory and application of multivariate splines which I have studied for over twenty years. One of the reasons that multivariate splines have interested me for so long is that it can be used as a fundamental tool for approximating any known or unknown functions. Typical applications are scattered data fitting. and interpolations, numerical solutions of partial differential equations, image enhancements, and data forecasting. Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computation, and Applied Mathematics in general need such a tool. I mainly study the approximation properties of multivariate splines, construction of locally supported spline functions, approximation properties of data fitting using multivariate splines, computational schemes using multivariate splines for applications. A typical paper that represents my work can be found in On the Approximation Power of Bivariate Splines. They have various applications in data fitting and hole filling in Computer Aided Geometric Design, numerical solution of PDE, e.g. Fluid Flow Simulation, and in geodetic application, e.g. geopotential reconstruction. Bivariate Splines can be used for image enhancements as seen in these numerical results. I have used bivariate splines for statistical applications, e.g. to forecast ozone concentration level at Atlanta based on spatial data around Atlanta. We are able to predict the level of ozone concentration very well. In particular, a usefulness of these multivariate splines can be seen in a Ph.D. at the aerospace engineering department of Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. Their usage for a global system of identification based on a NASA wind tunnel dataset and other data sets demonstrates their excellence, much better than other data fitting methods. See Visser's Dissertation for detail.

"Spline Functions on Triangulations" Larry Schumaker and I wrote a monograph "Spline Functions on Triangulations" together which was published by Cambridge University Press in 1997.

Wavelets I have also studied wavelet functions and their application for image processing for more than ten years. My interest is to construct various compactly supported orthonormal wavelets, orthonormal multi-wavelets, biorthogonal wavelets, tight wavelet frames, orthonormal wavelets in Sobolev spaces, and pre-wavelets in the multivariate setting based on multivariate splines. The regularity of these wavelets are inherited from the spline functions used. Tight wavelet frames based on bivariate box splines are implemented and used for image edge detection and denoising.

PDE I have used bivariate splines to numerically solve 2D Navier-Stokes equations, 2D nonlinear biharmonic equations associated to a model for thin-films which are similar to Ginzburg-Laudau equations. In addition to the use of wavelets for image processing, I am also interested in the PDE approach for image denoising, mainly using bivariate splines to solve the nonlinear PDE associated with ROF model for image denoising and use the approach for image resizing, image imprinting, and image enhancements.

Currently I am interested in sparest solutions of undetermined linear systems and their applications in compressed sensing and other areas. In my joint paper with Simon Foucart, we show how to use quasi norm l_q, 0 < q ≤ 1 to find the sparsest solution. This paper has many citations since its publication.

An application of multivariate splines for Fluid Flow Simulation won me a research medal from the University of Georgia in 2002. The representative paper is Bivariate Splines for Fluid Flows. In this paper, many standard fluid flows, e.g. cavity flows, backward step flows, flows around a circular object with various Reynolds numbers are simulated. In particular, a cavity flow over a triangular domain is simulated. Flows passing through a narrowed channel is simulated. Bivariate splines of various degrees were used in various simulations. The highest degree I used is 12.

I was born and raised in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. In my opinion, Hangzhou is one of the most beautiful cities in China. I received my Bachelor's Degree from Hangzhou University which is now a part of Zhejiang University. In 1984, I went to Texas A&M University for my graduate studies and began my life in United States of America. After obtaining my Ph.D. in 1989, I continued on to the University of Utah for three years of postdoctoral training. Since 1992, I have been working at University of Georgia . I was promoted to a full professor in 2000 and have raised a dozen of Ph.D. students and four masters students. While teaching both undergraduate and graduate level classes at Math. Dept. of UGA , I have visited many places in the U.S. and several places around the world to present talks, attend professional conferences, and collaborate on research projects, but I always take the opportunity to go back to my hometown; every year for the last 15 years, I have visited Hangzhou and presented talks at Zhejiang University every year.

My wife and I both work at UGA, and have raised two great kids, Ruby and Michael, both of whom are in college, one in Harvard University and one in Princeton University.

I like gardening and have planted hundred trees and bushes as well as numerous flowers around my house since we moved in the house we built. See the backyard.

My Erdos number is 2 and my h-index is 10 as Aug. 10, 2011. That is, at least 10 papers each of which has been cited 10 times based on AMS MathSciNet. See google scholars for more citation information.

I like to read mathematics books. They like a noval to me. See a list of few books I have read rather thoroughly.