Boundary Value Problems 
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 254593, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/254593
Research Article

Global Behavior of the Components for the Second Order m-Point Boundary Value Problems

Yulian An1,2 and Ruyun Ma1

1Department of Mathematics, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
2Department of Mathematics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China

Received 9 October 2007; Accepted 16 December 2007

Recommended by Kanishka Perera

Abstract

We consider the nonlinear eigenvalue problems u+rf(u)=0, 0<t<1, u(0)=0, u(1)=i=1m2αiu(ηi), where m3, ηi(0,1), and αi>0 for i=1,,m2, with i=1m2αi<1; r; fC1(,). There exist two constants s2<0<s1 such that f(s1)=f(s2)=f(0)=0 and f0:=limu0(f(u)/u)(0,), f:=lim|u|(f(u)/u)(0,). Using the global bifurcation techniques, we study the global behavior of the components of nodal solutions of the above problems.