Numerical simulation of the endolymph flow in a semicircular canal

We present a concept for the simulation of the fluid flow in the semicircular canals of the inner ear. Based on the temporal dynamics of an idealized model configuration we formulate the governing equations and devise a strategy for their numerical solution. We analyze the proposed method and find a numerical instability. This instability is characterized by an error bound which can serve as a guideline for tuning the numerical method to the specific boundary conditions. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A nonstandard finite difference method for solving a mathematical model of HIV-TB co-infection

We design and analyze an unconditionally convergent nonstandard finite-difference method to study transmission dynamics of a mathematical model of HIV-TB co-infection. The dynamics of this model are studied using the qualitative theory of dynamical systems. These qualitative features of the continuous model are preserved by the numerical method that we propose in this paper. This method also preserves positivity of the solution which is one of the essential requirements when modelling epidemic diseases. Furthermore, we show that the numerical method is unconditionally stable. Competitive numerical results confirming theoretical investigations are provided. Comparisons are also made with other conventional approaches that are routinely used to solve these types of problems.     

The Dynamics of a Prey-dependent Consumption Model Concerning Integrated Pest Management

A mathematical model for the dynamics of a prey-dependent consumption model concerning integrated pest management is proposed and analyzed. We show that there exists a globally stable pesteradication periodic solution when the impulsive period is less than some critical values. Furthermore, the conditions for the permanence of the system are given. By using bifurcation theory, we show the existence of a nontrival periodic solution if the pest-eradication periodic solution loses its stability. When the unique positive periodic solution loses its stability, numerical simulation shows there is a characteristic sequence of bifurcations, leading to a chaotic dynamics, which implies that dynamical behaviors of prey-dependent consumption concerning integrated pest management are very complex, including period-doubling cascades, chaotic bands with periodic windows, crises, symmetry-breaking bifurcations and supertransients.     

Asymptotic properties of the solution of a delay system

We consider a differential-difference system with constant delay of special form. We show that the derivative of the solution of the system tends to zero by the exponential law. This fact is used to construct a numerical solution for large times. We give an example of numerical simulation for a two-dimensional system.     

Semi-Lagrangian semi-implicit time-splitting scheme for a regional model of the atmosphere

Semi-Lagrangian semi-implicit (SLSI) method is currently one of the most efficient approaches for numerical solution of the atmosphere dynamics equations. In this research we apply splitting techniques in the context of a two-time-level SLSI scheme in order to simplify the treatment of the slow physical modes and optimize the solution of the elliptic equations related to implicit part of the scheme. The performed numerical experiments show the accuracy and computational efficiency of the scheme.     

A Crank-Nicolson scheme for the Landau-Lifshitz equation without damping

An accurate and efficient numerical approach, based on a finite difference method with Crank-Nicolson time stepping, is proposed for the Landau-Lifshitz equation without damping. The phenomenological Landau-Lifshitz equation describes the dynamics of ferromagnetism. The Crank-Nicolson method is very popular in the numerical schemes for parabolic equations since it is second-order accurate in time. Although widely used, the method does not always produce accurate results when it is applied to the Landau-Lifshitz equation. The objective of this article is to enumerate the problems and then to propose an accurate and robust numerical solution algorithm. A discrete scheme and a numerical solution algorithm for the Landau-Lifshitz equation are described. A nonlinear multigrid method is used for handling the nonlinearities of the resulting discrete system of equations at each time step. We show numerically that the proposed scheme has a second-order convergence in space and time.     

Optimizing daily agent scheduling in a multiskill call center

We examine and compare simulation-based algorithms for solving the agent scheduling problem in a multiskill call center. This problem consists in minimizing the total costs of agents under constraints on the expected service level per call type, per period, and aggregated. We propose a solution approach that combines simulation with integer or linear programming, with cut generation. In our numerical experiments with realistic problem instances, this approach performs better than all other methods proposed previously for this problem. We also show that the two-step approach, which is the standard method for solving this problem, sometimes yield solutions that are highly suboptimal and inferior to those obtained by our proposed method.     

设置黏滞阻尼器的纵飘斜拉桥地震响应简化分析方法

针对纵飘体系斜拉桥现有黏滞阻尼器参数设计方法的不足,提出了更为快捷有效的分析方法.首先基于钟摆原理,采用双质点模型简化模拟纵飘斜拉桥的动力响应特征;然后基于能量耗散等效原理,提出了黏滞阻尼器的等效线性模型;最后基于结构动力学原理,建立了设置黏滞阻尼器的纵飘斜拉桥地震响应简化分析方法.在此基础上,针对某主跨392 m的纵飘斜拉桥建立了全桥分析模型,在正弦波作用下,对比分析了全桥模型、双质点简化模型数值解和解析解的计算误差.结果表明:双质点模型数值解计算结果精度较高,可以代替全桥模型的有限元计算结果;解析解与双质点数值解计算结果吻合良好,验证了双质点模型简化分析方法在理论上的可靠性;在不同地震动特性和体系周期下,三者计算误差均满足工程精度要求,表明该简化分析方法具有良好的适用性,可为阻尼器参数优化提供更简便的模型.     

Boundary element method for simulating the coupled motion of a fluid and a three-dimensional body

A boundary element method for potential flow problem coupled with the dynamics of rigid body was developed to determine numerically the resultant force and moment of force acting on an arbitrarily three-dimensional solid body and its motion in a current of an infinite fluid. An accurate integration method for singular integrands occurring in the boundary integral equations, a computational method for the tangential gradient of a velocity potential on a surface, and a method to properly treat the singularities appearing in the system of the dynamic equations of a rigid body, were proposed to complete the numerical solution of the problem. Several numerical examples were given to show the validity of the method.     

Mathematical Analysis of an Approximation Model for a Spherical Cloud of Cavitation Bubbles

In the paper we introduce a new approximation scheme for modelling a spherical cloud of cavitation bubbles based upon a model developed in (Wang and Brennen in J. Fluids Eng. 121(4):872–880, 1999) which consists of fully nonlinear continuum mixture equations coupled with the Rayleigh-Plesset equation for dynamics of the bubbles. We prove existence of a unique, local-in-time solution to the equations using the Banach fixed-point theorem which also provides us with the convergent scheme for a numerical simulation of the solution. We further demonstrate acquired numerical results.     

Galerkin methods for a model of population dynamics with nonlinear diffusion

A numerical method is proposed to approximate the solution of a nonlinear and nonlocal system of integro-differential equations describing age-dependent population dynamics with spatial diffusion. We use a finite difference method along the characteristic age-time direction combined with finite elements in the spatial variable. Optimal order error estimates are derived for this approximation. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On a Numerical Algorithm for the Modeling of Processes in the Development of a Holographic Relief Image

We construct an algorithm for solving the problem of relief dynamics on the surface of a Newtonian fluid. The risk function is determined by the upper-relaxation method. The velocity field is found by using a two-step difference algorithm that allows one to simplify the calculations and increase the dimension of the system of finite-difference equations. A theorem on stability of the algorithm with respect to the initial data and on convergence of the numerical solution to an exact solution is proved.     

Analytical and numerical solutions of a one-dimensional fractional-in-space diffusion equation in a composite medium

In this paper a one-dimensional space fractional diffusion equation in a composite medium consisting of two layers in contact is studied both analytically and numerically. Since domain decomposition is the only approach available to solve this problem, we at first investigate analytical and numerical strategies for a composite medium with the same fractal dimension in each layer to ascertain which domain decomposition approach is the most accurate and consistent with a global solution methodology, which is available in this case. We utilise a matrix representation of the fractional-in-space operator to generate a system of linear ODEs with the matrix raised to the same fractional exponent. We show that the global and domain decomposition numerical strategies for this problem produce simulation results that are in good agreement with their analytic counterparts and conclude that the domain decomposition that imposes the Neumann condition at the interface produces the most consistent results. Finally, we carry this finding to study the composite problem with different fractal dimensions, where we again favourably compare analytic and numerical solutions. The resulting method can be naturally extended to space fractional diffusion in a composite medium consisting of more than two layers.     

Normal form and long time analysis of splitting schemes for the linear Schrödinger equation with small potential

We consider the linear Schrödinger equation on a one dimensional torus and its time-discretization by splitting methods. Assuming a non-resonance condition on the stepsize and a small size of the potential, we show that the numerical dynamics can be reduced over exponentially long time to a collection of two dimensional symplectic systems for asymptotically large modes. For the numerical solution, this implies the long time conservation of the energies associated with the double eigenvalues of the free Schrödinger operator. The method is close to standard techniques used in finite dimensional perturbation theory, but extended here to infinite dimensional operators.     

A modification of the stochastic ruler method for discrete stochastic optimization

We propose a modified stochastic ruler method for finding a global optimal solution to a discrete optimization problem in which the objective function cannot be evaluated analytically but has to be estimated or measured. Our method generates a Markov chain sequence taking values in the feasible set of the underlying discrete optimization problem; it uses the number of visits this sequence makes to the different states to estimate the optimal solution. We show that our method is guaranteed to converge almost surely (a.s.) to the set of global optimal solutions. Then, we show how our method can be used for solving discrete optimization problems where the objective function values are estimated using either transient or steady-state simulation. Finally, we provide some numerical results to check the validity of our method and compare its performance with that of the original stochastic ruler method.     

Galerkin finite element method and error analysis for the fractional cable equation

The cable equation is one of the most fundamental equations for modeling neuronal dynamics. These equations can be derived from the Nernst-Planck equation for electro-diffusion in smooth homogeneous cylinders. Fractional cable equations are introduced to model electrotonic properties of spiny neuronal dendrites. In this paper, a Galerkin finite element method(GFEM) is presented for the numerical simulation of the fractional cable equation(FCE) involving two integro-differential operators. The proposed method is based on a semi-discrete finite difference approximation in time and Galerkin finite element method in space. We prove that the numerical solution converges to the exact solution with order O(τ+h^l+1) for the lth-order finite element method. Further, a novel Galerkin finite element approximation for improving the order of convergence is also proposed. Finally, some numerical results are given to demonstrate the theoretical analysis. The results show that the numerical solution obtained by the improved Galerkin finite element approximation converges to the exact solution with order O(τ²+h^l+1).     

A locking-free scheme for the LQR control of a Timoshenko beam

In this paper we analyze a locking-free numerical scheme for the LQR control of a Timoshenko beam. We consider a non-conforming finite element discretization of the system dynamics and a control law constant in the spatial dimension. To solve the LQR problem we seek a feedback control which depends on the solution of an algebraic Riccati equation. An optimal error estimate for the feedback operator is proved in the framework of the approximation theory for control of infinite dimensional systems. This estimate is valid with constants that do not depend on the thickness of the beam, which leads to the conclusion that the method is locking-free. In order to assess the performance of the method, numerical tests are reported and discussed.     

Synchronization of chaotic dynamical network with unknown generally time-delayed couplings via a simple adaptive feedback control

In this paper, based on the principle of functional differential equations, a simple adaptive feedback controller is proposed to synchronize the network with unknown generally time-delayed coupling functions. Unlike the other control schemes, we design the controllers by the output of each node. The advantage of this scheme is that we need not to know the concrete structure of coupling functions or a solution of node system in advance. Moreover, an illustrative example is considered and numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of this control scheme. The numerical simulation results show that our method is valid and robust against the weak noise.     

An optimal data assimilation method and its application to the numerical simulation of the ocean dynamics

An original data assimilation (DA) scheme with a general dynamics model is considered. It is shown that this scheme can be approximated by the stochastic diffusion process. The sufficient conditions to provide this approximation are formulated. Based on this algorithm a new DA method is developed. The method combines variational and statistical approaches commonly used in DA theory and minimizes the variance of the trajectory of a diffusion process in conjunction with a dynamics numerical model. In this sense the method is optimal in contrast to other DA approaches. The proposed scheme takes the model dynamics into account and in this way it differs from the well-known Kalman filter. Furthermore, the derived DA method can be applied to a very wide field of dynamical systems, for example, gas dynamics, fluid dynamics and other disciplines. However, the current study deals with oceanography and DA in oceanography specifically. Then the method is applied to the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model and assimilates satellite sea level anomaly data from the Archiving, Validating and Interpolating Satellite Oceanography Data over the Atlantic Ocean to correct the model state. Several numerical experiments have been performed. The experiments show that the method substantially changes the synoptic and mesoscale structure of ocean dynamics. Also, the distribution of the obtained result is estimated through the solution of the Fokker–Planck–Kolmogorov equation.     

Three-dimensional numerical simulation of the inverse problem of thermal convection using the quasi-reversibility method

Inverse (time-reverse) simulation of three-dimensional thermoconvective flows is considered for a highly viscous incompressible fluid with temperature-dependent density and viscosity. The model of the fluid dynamics is described by the Stokes equations, the incompressibility and heat balance equations subject to the appropriate initial and boundary conditions. To solve the problem backward in time, the quasi-reversibility method is applied to the heat balance equation. The numerical solution is based on the introduction of a two-component vector potential for the velocity of the medium, on the application of the finite element method with a special tricubic spline basis for computing this potential, and on the application of the splitting method and the method of characteristics for computing the temperature. The numerical algorithm is designed to be executed on parallel computers. The proposed numerical algorithm is used to reconstruct the evolution of diapiric structures in the Earth’s upper mantle. The computational efficiency of the algorithm is analyzed on the basis of the appropriate functionals of residuals.