Spherical radial basis functions are used to define approximate solutions to strongly elliptic pseudodifferential equations on the unit sphere. These equations arise from geodesy. The approximate solutions are found by the Galerkin and collocation me
thods. A salient feature of the paper is a {em unified theory} for error analysis of both approximation methods.
In this paper we show that the twisted Alexander polynomial associated to a parabolic representation determines fiberedness and genus of a wide class of 2-bridge knots. As a corollary we give an affirmative answer to a conjecture of Dunfield, Friedl and Jackson for infinitely many hyperbolic knots.
