Calculus of sequential normal compactness in variational analysis

In this paper we study some properties of sets, set-valued mappings, and extended-real-valued functions unified under the name of "sequential normal compactness." These properties automatically hold in finite-dimensional spaces, while they play a major role in infinite-dimensional variational analysis. In particular, they are essential for calculus rules involving generalized differential constructions, for stability and metric regularity results and their broad applications, for necessary optimality conditions in constrained optimization and optimal control, etc. This paper contains principal results ensuring the preservation of sequential normal compactness properties under various operations over sets, set-valued mappings, and functions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.