Observations on the tanh-coth expansion method for finding solutions to nonlinear evolution equations

The 'tanh-coth expansion method' for finding solitary travelling-wave solutions to nonlinear evolution equations has been used extensively in the literature. It is a natural extension to the basic tanh-function expansion method which was developed in the 1990s. It usually delivers three types of solution, namely a tanh-function expansion, a coth-function expansion, and a tanh-coth expansion. It is known that, for every tanh-function expansion solution, there is a corresponding coth-function expansion solution. It is shown that there is a tanh-coth expansion solution that is merely a disguised version of the coth solution. In many papers, such tanh-coth solutions are erroneously claimed to be 'new'. However, other tanh-coth solutions may be delivered that are genuinely new in the sense that they would not be delivered via the basic tanh-function method. Similar remarks apply to tan, cot and tan-cot expansion solutions

Meromorphic solutions of nonlinear ordinary differential equations

Exact solutions of some popular nonlinear ordinary differential equations are analyzed taking their Laurent series into account. Using the Laurent series for solutions of nonlinear ordinary differential equations we discuss the nature of many methods for finding exact solutions. We show that most of these methods are conceptually identical to one another and they allow us to have only the same solutions of nonlinear ordinary differential equations

A note on "new travelling wave solutions to the Ostrovsky equation"

In a recent paper by Yaşar [E. Yaşar, New travelling wave solutions to the Ostrovsky equation, Appl. Math. Comput. 216 (2010), 3191-3194], 'new' travelling-wave solutions to the transformed reduced Ostrovsky equation are presented. In this note it is shown that some of these solutions are disguised versions of known solutions

Soliton and periodic wave solutions to the osmosis K(2, 2) equation

In this paper, two types of traveling wave solutions to the osmosis K(2, 2) equation are investigated. They are characterized by two parameters. The expresssions for the soliton and periodic wave solutions are obtained.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure

On Completely Integrability Systems of Differential Equations

In this note we discuss the approach which was given by Wazwaz for the proof of the complete integrability to the system of nonlinear differential equations. We show that his method presented in [Wazwaz A.M. Completely integrable coupled KdV and coupled KP systems, Commun Nonlinear Sci Simulat 15 (2010) 2828-2835] is incorrect.Comment: 14 pages. This paper was sent to the Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulatio