This is a survey of results on the long-time behavior of solutions to phase-field models and related problems. The central idea is based on several non-standard applications of the Łojasiewicz-Simon theory.

Using a version of the Local Linking Theorem and the Fountain Theorem, we obtain some existence and multiplicity results for a class of superquadratic elliptic equations.

$\mathrm{\Omega }$ is a bounded open set of ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, of class $C^2$ and $T>0$. In the cylinder $Q=\mathrm{\Omega }\times \left(0,T\right)$ we consider non variational basic operator $a\left(H\left(u\right)\right)-\partial u/\partial t$ where $a\left(\xi \right)$ is a vector in ${\mathbb{R}}^N$, $N\ge 1$, which is continuous in $\xi$ and satisfies the condition (A). It is shown that $\mathrm{\forall }f\in L^2\left(Q\right)$ the Cauchy-Dirichlet problem $u\in W_0^{2,1}\left(Q\right)$, $a\left(H\left(u\right)\right)-\partial u/\partial t=f$ in $Q$, has a unique solution. It is further shown that if $u\in W_0^{2,1}\left(Q\right)$ is a solution of the basic system $a\left(H\left(u\right)\right)-\partial u/\partial t=0$ in $Q$, then $H\left(u\right)$ and $\partial u/\partial t$ belong to $H_{loc}^1\left(Q\right)$. From this the Hölder continuity in $Q$ of the vectors $u$ and $Du$ are deduced respectively when $n\le 4$ and $n=2$.

The purpose of this paper is to derive norm inequalities for potentials of the formTf(x) = ∫(Rn) f(y)K(x,y)dy,     x ∈ Rn,when K is a Kernel which satisfies estimates like those that hold for the Green function associated with the degenerate elliptic equations studied in [3] and [4].

De Pablo et al. [Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 138 (2008), 513-530] considered a nonlinear boundary value problem for a porous medium equation with a convection term, and they classified exponents of nonlinearities which lead either to the global-in-time existence of solutions or to a blow-up of solutions. In their analysis they left open the case of a certain critical range of exponents. The purpose of this note is to fill this gap.

The parabolic equations driven by linearly multiplicative Gaussian noise are stabilizable in probability by linear feedback controllers with support in a suitably chosen open subset of the domain. This procedure extends to Navier − Stokes equations with multiplicative noise. The exact controllability is also discussed.