The main purpose of this book is to provide a systematic and unified exposition of comparison principles based on a suitably extended sub-supersolution method. This method is an effective and flexible technique to obtain existence and comparison results of solutions. Also, it can be employed for the investigation of various qualitative properties, such as location, multiplicity and extremality of solutions. In the treatment of the problems under consideration a wide range of methods and techniques from nonlinear and nonsmooth analysis is applied, a brief outline of which has been provided in a preliminary chapter in order to make the book self-contained.

This text is an invaluable reference for researchers and graduate students in mathematics (functional analysis, partial differential equations, elasticity, applications in materials science and mechanics) as well as physicists and engineers.