Computing Aviation Sparing Policies: Solving a Large Nonlinear Integer Program

Deployed US Navy aircraft carriers must stock a large number of spare parts to support the various types of aircraft embarked on the ship. The sparing policy determines the spares that will be stocked on the ship to keep the embarked aircraft ready to fly. Given a fleet of ten or more aircraft carriers and a cost of approximately 50 million dollars per carrier plus the cost of spares maintained in warehouses in the United States, the sparing problem constitutes a significant portion of the Navy’s resources. The objective of this work is to find a minimum-cost sparing policy that meets the readiness requirements of the embarked aircraft. This is a very large, nonlinear, integer optimization problem. The cost function is piecewise linear and convex while the constraint mapping is highly nonlinear. The distinguishing characteristics of this problem from an optimization viewpoint are that a large number of decision variables are required to be integer and that the nonlinear constraint functions are essentially “black box” functions; that is, they are very difficult (and expensive) to evaluate and their derivatives are not available. Moreover, they are not convex. Integer programming problems with a large number of variables are difficult to solve in general and most successful approaches to solving nonlinear integer problems have involved linear approximation and relaxation techniques that, because of the complexity of the constraint functions, are inappropriate for attacking this problem. We instead employ a pattern search method to each iteration of an interior point-type algorithm to solve the relaxed version of the problem. From the solution found by the pattern search on each interior point iteration, we begin another pattern search on the integer lattice to find a good integer solution. The best integer solution found across all interations is returned as the optimal solution. The pattern searches are distributed across a local area network of non-dedicated, heterogeneous computers in an office environment, thus, drastically reducing the time required to find the solution.     

A simple proof of Sanov’s theorem*

A simple self-contained proof of Sanov's theorem in τ-topology is given, well suited for a first course on large deviations. *This work was supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research under Grant T046376     

正相协列乘积和的重对数律与强大数律

证明了强平稳正相协列乘积和的重对数律与不同分布正相协列乘积和的强大数律,指出了部分和服从强大数律但乘积和未必服从强大数律这一事实,并讨论了定理2中一个条件的必要性．     

B值鞅型序列的一些极限定理

本文讨论了一些B值鞅型序列的强大数定律 ,弱大数定律 ,Lr收敛性及完全收敛性 ,推广了许多熟知的结果 .     

制备相干态腔场GHZ态

提出了一种利用简并Ⅴ型三能级原子与相干态光场(大失谐条件下)Raman相互作用实现类自旋的腔场Greenberger-Home-Zeilinger(即GHZ)态的新方案。     

Theorems of Large Deviations in the Approximation by the Compound Poisson Distribution

The paper is devoted to the research of large deviation probabilities in the approximation by compound Poisson law.     

A general Hsu-Robbins-Erdős Type estimate of tail probabilities of sums of independent identically distributed random variables

Periodica Mathematica Hungarica - Let X 1,X 2,... be a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, and put % MATHTYPE!MTEF!2!1!+-%...     

A strong law of large numbers for generalized random sets from the viewpoint of empirical processes

In this article we prove a strong law of large numbers for Borel measurable nonseparably valued random elements in the case of generalized random sets.

     

大视场短焦距镜头CCD摄像系统的畸变校正

从光学测量角度出发,结合计算机视觉中的摄像机标定方法,解决了大视场短焦距镜头CCD摄像系统的畸变校正问题。与摄像机标定不同,畸变校正中仅标定内部参数,外部参数作为已知条件。采用线性畸变模型,由最小二乘法解线性方程组得到摄像系统畸变模型的畸变系数。介绍了数字图像中像素间距和光学中心的标定方法。通过比较由标定参数得到的畸变图像和摄像机采集的畸变图像对实验标定精度进行评定,实验结果表明边缘视场(112°)的标定精度达到了0 75%。     

THE LARGE TIME BEHAVIOR OF SPECTRAL APPROXIMATION FOR A CLASS OF PSEUDOPARABOLIC VISCOUS DIFFUSION EQUATION

The asymptotic behavior of the solutions to a class of pseudoparabolic viscous diffusion equation with periodic initial condition is studied by using the spectral method. The semidiscrete Fourier approximate solution of the problem is constructed and the error estiation between spectral approximate solution and exact solution on large time is also obtained. The existence of the approximate attractor AN and the upper semicontinuity d(AN,A)→0 are proved.