Sparse convolution quadrature for time domain boundary integral formulations of the wave equation

S. A. Sauter Institut für Mathematik, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland ^{Many important physical applications are governed by the waveequation. The formulation as time domain boundary integral equationsinvolves retarded potentials. For the numerical solution ofthis problem, we employ the convolution quadrature method forthe discretization in time and the Galerkin boundary elementmethod for the space discretization. We introduce a simple apriori cut-off strategy where small entries of the system matricesare replaced by zero. The threshold for the cut-off is determinedby an a priori analysis which will be developed in this paper.This analysis will also allow to estimate the effect of additionalperturbations such as panel clustering and numerical integrationon the overall discretization error. This method reduces thestorage complexity for time domain integral equations from O(M2N)to O(M2N logM), where N denotes the number of time steps andM is the dimension of the boundary element space.}     

Predicting overflow in an emergency department

G. B. Byrnes Centre for Molecular, Environmental, Genetic and Analytic Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia C. A. Bain Directorate Office, Western and Central Melbourne Integrated Cancer Service, Victoria, Australia M. Fackrell Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia C. Brand Clinical Epidemiology and Health Service Evaluation Unit, Melbourne Health, Victoria, Australia D. A. Campbell Department of Medicine, Southern Clinical School, Monash University, Victoria, Australia P. G. Taylor Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Email: l.au{at}ms.unimelb.edu.au Received on 9 October 2007. Accepted on 4 February 2008. Ambulance bypass occurs when the emergency department (ED) ofa hospital becomes so busy that ambulances are requested totake their patients elsewhere, except in life-threatening cases.It is a major concern for hospitals in Victoria, Australia,and throughout most of the western world, not only from thepoint of view of patient safety but also financially—hospitalslose substantial performance bonuses if they go on ambulancebypass too often in a given period. We show that the main causeof ambulance bypass is the inability to move patients from theED to a ward. In order to predict the onset of ambulance bypass,the ED is modelled as a queue for treatment followed by a queuefor a ward bed. The queues are assumed to behave as inhomogeneousPoisson arrival processes. We calculate the probability of reachingsome designated capacity C within time t, given the currenttime and number of patients waiting.     

An a posteriori error estimator for the Lame equation based on equilibrated fluxes

Katharina Witowski ^{We derive a new a posteriori error estimator for the Lamésystem based on H(div)-conforming elements and equilibratedfluxes. It is shown that the estimator gives rise to an upperbound where the constant is one up to higher-order terms. Thelower bound is also established using Argyris elements. Thereliability and efficiency of the proposed estimator are confirmedby some numerical tests.}     

Adaptive frame methods for elliptic operator equations: the steepest descent approach

Massimo Fornasier^¶ Dipartimento di Metodi e Modelli Matematici per le Scienze Applicate, Università "La Sapienza" in Roma, Via Antonio Scarpa, 16/B, I-00161 Roma, Italy Rob Stevenson^|| Department of Mathematics, Utrecht University, PO Box 80.010, NL-3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands ^{This paper is concerned with the development of adaptive numericalmethods for elliptic operator equations. We are particularlyinterested in discretization schemes based on wavelet frames.We show that by using three basic subroutines an implementable,convergent scheme can be derived, which, moreover, has optimalcomputational complexity. The scheme is based on adaptive steepestdescent iterations. We illustrate our findings by numericalresults for the computation of solutions of the Poisson equationwith limited Sobolev smoothness on intervals in 1D and L-shapeddomains in 2D.}     

A conforming mixed finite-element method for the coupling of fluid flow with porous media flow

Salim Meddahi ^{We consider a porous medium entirely enclosed within a fluidregion and present a well-posed conforming mixed finite-elementmethod for the corresponding coupled problem. The interfaceconditions refer to mass conservation, balance of normal forcesand the Beavers–Joseph–Saffman law, which yieldsthe introduction of the trace of the porous medium pressureas a suitable Lagrange multiplier. The finite-element subspacesdefining the discrete formulation employ Bernardi–Raugeland Raviart–Thomas elements for the velocities, piecewiseconstants for the pressures and continuous piecewise-linearelements for the Lagrange multiplier. We show stability, convergenceand a priori error estimates for the associated Galerkin scheme.Finally, we provide several numerical results illustrating thegood performance of the method and confirming the theoreticalrates of convergence.}     

An unfitted finite-element method for elliptic and parabolic interface problems

Bhupen Deka Department of Mathematics, Assam University, Silchar-788011, India ^{A finite-element discretization, independent of the locationof the interface, is proposed and analysed for linear ellipticand parabolic interface problems. We establish error estimatesof optimal order in the H1-norm and almost optimal order inthe L2-norm for elliptic interface problems. An extension toparabolic interface problems is also discussed and an optimalerror estimate in the L2(0, T;H1())-norm and an almost optimalorder estimate in the L2(0, T;L2())-norm are derived for thespatially discrete scheme. A fully discrete scheme based onthe backward Euler method is analysed and an optimal order errorestimate in the L2(0, T;H1())-norm is derived. The interfacesare assumed to be of arbitrary shape and smooth for our purpose.}     

A safeguarded dual weighted residual method

Andreas Veeser ^{The dual weighted residual (DWR) method yields reliable a posteriorierror bounds for linear output functionals provided that theerror incurred by the numerical approximation of the dual solutionis negligible. In that case, its performance is generally superiorthan that of global ‘energy norm’ error estimatorswhich are ‘unconditionally’ reliable. We presenta simple numerical example for which neglecting the approximationerror leads to severe underestimation of the functional error,thus showing that the DWR method may be unreliable. We proposea remedy that preserves the original performance, namely a DWRmethod safeguarded by additional asymptotically higher ordera posteriori terms. In particular, the enhanced estimator isunconditionally reliable and asymptotically coincides with theoriginal DWR method. These properties are illustrated via theaforementioned example.}     

Numerical approximation of anisotropic geometric evolution equations in the plane

Harald Garcke Naturwissenchaftliche Fakultät I' Mathematik, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany Robert Nürnberg Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK Received on 13 April 2006. Revised on 20 February 2007. We present a variational formulation of fully anisotropic motionby surface diffusion and mean curvature flow, as well as relatedflows. The proposed scheme covers both the closed-curve caseand the case of curves that are connected via triple junctionpoints. On introducing a parametric finite-element approximation,we prove stability bounds and report on numerical experiments,including regularized crystalline mean curvature flow and regularizedcrystalline surface diffusion. The presented scheme has verygood properties with respect to the distribution of mesh pointsand, if applicable, area conservation.     

The mortar spectral element method in domains of operators. Part II: the curl operator and the vector potential problem

F. Ben Belgacem ^{The mortar spectral element method is a domain decompositiontechnique that allows for discretizing second- or fourth-orderelliptic equations when set in standard Sobolev spaces. Theaim of this paper is to extend this method to problems formulatedin the space of square-integrable vector fields with square-integrablecurl. We consider the problem of computing the vector potentialassociated with a divergence-free function in 3D and proposea discretization of it. The numerical analysis of the discreteproblem is performed and numerical experiments are presented;they turn out to be in good agreement with the theoretical results.}