Prof. Marcelo Moreira Cavalcanti
State University of Maringá, Brazil
Professor Marcelo Moreira Cavalcanti
received his B.S., his M.S., and his Ph.D.
degrees from the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro, in 1985, 1988, and 1995,
respectively. He has been an Associated
Professor in the Department of
Mathematics at the State University of
Maringá since 1989 up to 2015 and he is
currently a Full professor at the same
university. The main focus of his research
is the study of the behavior of the energy
of distributed systems. To explain more
precisely the development of his research,
consider a physical phenomenon which is
described by a partial differential equation
and, in addition, assume that there is an
external or intrinsic mechanism (damping)
acting on the system and which is
responsible for the dissipation of its
energy. The purpose of his study is to
answer some questions related to the region where the damping must be acting in
order to obtain the optimal decay rate of the energy. This subject was wisely
described by one of the greatest contemporary scientists, Jacques Louis Lions
(1928-2001) when he said: To "control" a system is to make it behave (hopefully)
according to our "wishes," in a way compatible with safety and ethics, at the least
possible cost. The systems considered here are distributed i.e., governed (modeled)
by partial differential equations (PDEs) of evolution. Our "wish" is to drive the system
in a given time, by an adequate choice of the controls, from a given initial state to a
final given state, which is the target.