In a recent paper, Miller derived a Kummer-type transformation for the generalised hypergeometric function $_{p}{{F}_{p}}(x)$ when pairs of parameters differ by unity, by means of a reduction formula for a certain Kampé de Fériet function. An alternative and simpler derivation of this transformation is obtained here by application of the well-known Kummer transformation for the confluent hypergeometric function corresponding to $p\,=\,1$

Some new inequalities for quotients of modified Bessel functions of the first and second kinds are deduced. Moreover, some developments on bounds for modified Bessel functions of the first and second kinds, higher-order monotonicity properties of these functions and applications to a special function that arises in finite elasticity, are summarized. The key tool in our proofs is a frequently used criterion for the monotonicity of the quotient of two Maclaurin series.

In this paper we construct a flat smooth section of an induced space $I(s,\eta )$ of $S{{L}_{2}}\left( \mathbb{R} \right)$ so that the attached Whittaker function is not of finite order. An asymptotic method of classical analysis is used.

We show that the value distribution (complex oscillation) of solutions of certain periodic second order ordinary differential equations studied by Bank, Laine and Langley is closely related to confluent hypergeometric functions, Bessel functions and Bessel polynomials. As a result, we give a complete characterization of the zero-distribution in the sense of Nevanlinna theory of the solutions for two classes of the ODEs. Our approach uses special functions and their asymptotics. New results concerning finiteness of the number of zeros (finite-zeros) problem of Bessel and Coulomb wave functions with respect to the parameters are also obtained as a consequence. We demonstrate that the problem for the remaining class of ODEs not covered by the above “special function approach” can be described by a classical Heine problem for differential equations that admit polynomial solutions.

Let Mn denote the size of the largest amongst the first n generations of a simple branching process. It is shown for near critical processes with a finite offspring variance that the law of Mn/n, conditioned on no extinction at or before n, has a non-defective weak limit. The proof uses a conditioned functional limit theorem deriving from the Feller-Lindvall (CB) diffusion limit for branching processes descended from increasing numbers of ancestors. Subsidiary results are given about hitting time laws for CB diffusions and Bessel processes.