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The fourth order periodic boundary value problem $u^{\left(4\right)}-m⁴u+F(t,u)=0$, 0 < t < 2π, with $u^{\left(i\right)}\left(0\right)=u^{\left(i\right)}\left(2\pi \right)$, i = 0,1,2,3, is studied by using the fixed point index of mappings in cones, where F is a nonnegative continuous function and 0 < m < 1. Under suitable conditions on F, it is proved that the problem has at least two positive solutions if m ∈ (0,M), where M is the smallest positive root of the equation tan mπ = -tanh mπ, which takes the value 0.7528094 with an error of $\pm {10}^{-7}$.

We describe a constructive method which yields two monotone sequences that converge uniformly to extremal solutions to the periodic boundary value problem u''(t) = f(t,u(t),u'(t)), u(0) = u(2π), u'(0) = u'(2π) in the presence of a lower solution α(t) and an upper solution β(t) with β(t) ≤ α(t).