Assessment of some iterative methods for non-symmetric linear systems arising in computational fluid dynamics

Various tests have been carried out in order to compare the performances of several methods used to solve the non-symmetric linear systems of equations arising from implicit discretizations of CFD problems, namely the scalar advection-diffusion equation and the compressible Euler equations. The iterative schemes under consideration belong to three families of algorithms: relaxation (Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel), gradient and Newton methods. Two gradient methods have been selected: a Krylov subspace iteration method (GMRES) and a non-symmetric extension of the conjugate gradient method (CGS). Finally, a quasi-Newton method has also been considered (Broyden). The aim of this paper is to provide indications of which appears to be the most adequate method according to the particular circumstances as well as to discuss the implementation aspects of each scheme.     

Incremental unknowns preconditioning for solving the Helmholtz equation

An efficient preconditioner is developed for solving the Helmholtz problem in both high and low frequency (wavenumber) regimes. The preconditioner is based on hierarchical unknowns on nested grids, known as incremental unknowns (IU). The motivation for the IU preconditioner is provided by an eigenvalue analysis of a simplified Helmholtz problem. The performance of our preconditioner is tested on the iterative solution of two‐dimensional electromagnetic scattering problems. When compared with other well‐known methods, our technique is shown to often provide a better numerical efficacy and, most importantly, to be more robust. Moreover, for the best performance, the number of IU levels used in the preconditioner should be designed for the coarsest grid to have roughly two points per linear wavelength. This result is consistent with the conventional sampling criteria for wave phenomena in contrast with existing IU applications for solving the Laplace/Poisson problem, where the coarsest grid comprises just one interior point. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2007     

L p -dual Quermassintegral sums

In this paper, we first introduce a concept of L _p -dual Quermassintegral sum function of convex bodies and establish the polar projection Minkowski inequality and the polar projection Aleksandrov-Fenchel inequality for L _p -dual Quermassintegral sums. Moreover, by using Lutwak’s width-integral of index i, we establish the L _p -Brunn-Minkowski inequality for the polar mixed projection bodies. As applications, we prove some interrelated results. This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10271071), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. Y605065) and Foundation of the Education Department of Zhejiang Province of China (Grant No. 20050392)     

Anomalous electric-field effect and glassy behaviour in granular aluminium thin films: electron glass?

We present a study of non-equilibrium phenomena observed in the electrical conductance of insulating granular aluminium thin films. An anomalous field effect and its slow relaxation are studied in some detail. The phenomenology is very similar to the one already observed in indium oxide. The origin of the phenomena is discussed. In granular systems, the present experiments can naturally be interpreted along two different lines. One relies on a slow polarisation in the dielectric surrounding the metallic islands. The other one relies on a purely electronic mechanism: the formation of an electron Coulomb glass in the granular metal. More selective experiments and/or quantitative predictions about the Coulomb glass properties are still needed to definitely distinguish between the two scenarios.     

线性互补问题的异步并行多分裂松弛迭代算法

将求解线性方程组的异步并行多分裂松弛迭代算法推广到线性互补问题.当问题的系数矩阵为H-矩阵类时,证明了算法的全局收敛性.     

Solving large-scale semidefinite programs in parallel

We describe an approach to the parallel and distributed solution of large-scale, block structured semidefinite programs using the spectral bundle method. Various elements of this approach (such as data distribution, an implicitly restarted Lanczos method tailored to handle block diagonal structure, a mixed polyhedral-semidefinite subdifferential model, and other aspects related to parallelism) are combined in an implementation called LAMBDA, which delivers faster solution times than previously possible, and acceptable parallel scalability on sufficiently large problems. This work was supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0215373 and DMS-0238008.     

Identification of a dissipation coefficient by a variational method

A generalized inverse problem for the identification of the absorption coefficient for a hyperbolic system is considered. The well-posedness of the problem is examined. It is proved that the regular part of the solution is an L ₂ function, which reduces the inverse problem to minimizing the error functional. The gradient of the functional is determined in explicit form from the adjoint problem, and approximate formulas for its calculation are derived. A regularization algorithm for the solution of the inverse problem is considered. Numerical results obtained for various excitation sources are displayed.     

STABLE SOLUTION OF TIME DOMAIN INTEGRAL EQUATION METHODS USING QUADRATIC B-SPLINE TEMPORAL BASIS FUNCTIONS

This paper is concerned with stable solutions of time domain integral equation （TDIE） methods for transient scattering problems with 3D conducting objects. We use the quadratic B-spline function as temporal basis functions, which permits both the induced currents and induced charges to be properly approximated in terms of completeness. Because the B-spline function has the least support width among all polynomial basis functions of the same order, the resulting system matrices seem to be the sparsest. The TDIE formula-tions using induced electric polarizations as unknown function are adopted and justified. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach is accurate and efficient, and no late-time instability is observed.     

乌鲁木齐市商业中心的等级体系及合理布局的探讨

本文利用85年5—6月间对乌鲁木齐市主要商业区及部分中、小商业区的实地调查资料,对乌市商业中心等级系统进行了定性和定量的分级分类,将全市商业中心划分为五个等级,八组商业中心,对已形成的商业中心分布现状进行了初步探讨,并对今后商业网点的合理布局提出了建议。     

On the convergence rate and optimization of a numerical method with splitting of boundary conditions for the stokes system in a spherical layer in the axisymmetric case: Modification for thick layers

The convergence rate of a fast-converging second-order accurate iterative method with splitting of boundary conditions constructed by the authors for solving an axisymmetric Dirichlet boundary value problem for the Stokes system in a spherical gap is studied numerically. For R/r exceeding about 30, where r and R are the radii of the inner and outer boundary spheres, it is established that the convergence rate of the method is lower (and considerably lower for large R/r) than the convergence rate of its differential version. For this reason, a really simpler, more slowly converging modification of the original method is constructed on the differential level and a finite-element implementation of this modification is built. Numerical experiments have revealed that this modification has the same convergence rate as its differential counterpart for R/r of up to 5 × 10³. When the multigrid method is used to solve the split and auxiliary boundary value problems arising at iterations, the modification is more efficient than the original method starting from R/r ～ 30 and is considerably more efficient for large values of R/r. It is also established that the convergence rates of both methods depend little on the stretching coefficient η of circularly rectangular mesh cells in a range of η that is well sufficient for effective use of the multigrid method for arbitrary values of R/r smaller than ～ 5 × 10³.