Some recent advances in the numerical solution of differential equations

The purpose of the talk is the presentation of some recent advances in the numerical solution of differential equations, with special emphasis to reaction-diffusion problems, Hamiltonian problems and ordinary differential equations with discontinuous right-hand side. As a special case, in this short paper we focus on the solution of reaction-diffusion problems by means of special purpose numerical methods particularly adapted to the problem: indeed, following a problem oriented approach, we propose a modified method of lines based on the employ of finite differences shaped on the qualitative behavior of the solutions. Constructive issues and a brief analysis are presented, together with some numerical experiments showing the effectiveness of the approach and a comparison with existing solvers.