Lyapunov orbits in the n-vortex problem

In the reduced phase space by rotation, we prove the existence of periodic orbits of the n-vortex problem emanating from a relative equilibrium formed by n unit vortices at the vertices of a regular polygon, both in the plane and at a fixed latitude when the ideal fluid moves on the surface of a sphere. In the case of a plane we also prove the existence of such periodic orbits in the (n + 1)-vortex problem, where an additional central vortex of intensity κ is added to the ring of the polygonal configuration.     

Upper bounds for the perimeter of plane convex bodies

We show that the maximum total perimeter of k plane convex bodies with disjoint interiors lying inside a given convex body C is equal to $\operatorname{per}\, (C)+2(k-1)\operatorname{diam}\, (C)$ , in the case when C is a square or an arbitrary triangle. A weaker bound is obtained for general plane convex bodies. As a consequence, we establish a bound on the perimeter of a polygon with at most k reflex angles lying inside a given plane convex body.     

On the efficiency of Newton and Broyden numerical methods in the investigation of the regular polygon problem of (N + 1) bodies

Numerical methods of finding the roots of a system of non-linear algebraic equations are treated in this paper. This paper attempts to give an answer to the selection of the most efficient method in a complex problem of Celestial Dynamics, the so-called ring problem of (N + 1) bodies. We apply Newton and Broyden’s method to these problems and we investigate, by means of their use, the planar equilibrium points, the five equilibrium zones, which are symbolized by A₁, A₂, B, C₂, and C₁ (by order of appearance from the center O to the periphery of the imaginary circle on which the primaries lie) [T.J. Kalvouridis, A planar case of the N + 1 body problem: the ring problem. Astrophys. Space Sci. 260 (3) (1999) 309-325], and the attracting regions of the system. The efficiency of these methods is studied through a comparative process. The obtained results are demonstrated in figures and are discussed.     

On the use of surfaces of section in the N-body ring problem

In the N-body ring problem, we investigate the motion of a massless body interacting with N bodies of equal masses at the vertices of a regular polygon that rotates around a central mass. In this paper, we analyze the use of different surfaces of section in the numerical exploration of the escape in the N-body ring problem in order to get some conclusions about the geometry of the basins of escape in the corresponding configuration spaces.     

A polygon is determined by its angles

We study the problem of reconstructing a simple polygon from angles measured at the vertices of the polygon. We assume that at each vertex v a sensing device returns a list of angles α₁,α₂,…, where αi is the angle between the i-th and the (i+1)-th vertices visible to v in counterclockwise (ccw) order starting with the ccw neighbor of v along the boundary. We prove that the angle measurements at all vertices of a simple polygon together with the order of the vertices along the boundary uniquely determine the polygon (up to similarity). In addition, we give an algorithm for reconstructing the polygon from this information in polynomial time.     

Holding a regular pyramid by a circle

Among other things, we prove the following (1) If a regular pyramid whose base is a regular polygon of circum-radius 1 has height at least 1, then the pyramid can be held by a circle, while for every ${0 < \varepsilon < 1}$ , there is a regular pyramid with height ${1 - \varepsilon}$ and base polygon of circum-radius 1 that cannot be held by any circle. (2) A regular pyramid of height h whose base is an equilateral triangle of circum-radius 1 can be held by a circle if and only if h > 0.479 . . . (which complements a theorem by Tanoue). (3) A regular pyramid with square base of unit circum-radius can be held by a circle if and only if its height is greater than 0.828 . . ..     

Orthogonal art galleries with interior walls

Consider an art gallery formed by a polygon on n vertices with m pairs of vertices joined by interior diagonals, the interior walls. Suppose that all walls (interior as well as exterior) are horizontal or vertical and each interior wall has an arbitrarily placed, arbitrarily small doorway. We show that the minimum number of guards that suffice to guard all such art galleries with n vertices and m interior walls is min{⌊(n+2m)/4⌋,⌊(n+3⌊n/2⌋+m-2)/8⌋}.     

Deforming star-shaped polygons in the plane

Given a star-shaped polygon in the euclidean plane and a vertex v of the polygon, the author characterizes all those points w in the plane such that when the vertex v moves to w along a straight line path, while all other vertices of the polygon are fixed, the polygon remains star-shaped. An example is given to show that this characterization fails for the star-shaped polyhedral spheres in the 3-dimensional euclidean space.     

Tilings of Convex Polygons with Congruent Triangles

By the spectrum of a polygon A we mean the set of triples (??,??,??) such that A can be dissected into congruent triangles of angles ??,??,??. We propose a technique for finding the spectrum of every convex polygon. Our method is based on the following classification. A tiling is called regular if there are two angles of the triangles, ?? and ?? such that at every vertex of the tiling the number of triangles having angle ?? equals the number of triangles having angle ??. Otherwise the tiling is irregular. We list all pairs (A,T) such that A is a convex polygon and T is a triangle that tiles A regularly. The list of triangles tiling A irregularly is always finite, and can be obtained, at least in principle, by considering the system of equations satisfied by the angles, examining the conjugate tilings, and comparing the sides and the area of the triangles to those of A. Using this method we characterize the convex polygons with infinite spectrum, and determine the spectrum of the regular triangle, the square, all rectangles, and the regular N-gons with N large enough.     

A Krasnosel’skii theorem for orthogonal polygons starshaped via staircase (n + 1)-paths

Let S be a simply connected orthogonal polygon in the plane, and let n be fixed, n ≥ 1. If every two points of S are visible via staircase n-paths from a common point of S, then S is starshaped via staircase (n + 1)-paths. Moreover, the associated staircase (n + 1)-kernel is staircase (n + 1)-convex. The number two is best possible, and the number n + 1 is best possible for n ≥ 2.     

Una proprietà di massimo dei poligoni affinemente regolari

We consider an affinely invariant functional on the classP _m of the plane convex polygons, withm sides,m>4. We give, for allm, a geometrical property of the maximizing polygons. Form=5, 6 the maximum is attained if and only if the polygons are affinely regular. The maximum inP _2n is a bound of another functional which arises in reconstructing plane convex bodies from the length of its chords alongn directions.     

Periodic solutions of the N-body problem

This paper proves the existence of six new classes of periodic solutions to the N-body problem by small parameter methods. Three different methods of introducing a small parameter are considered and an appropriate method of scaling the Hamiltonian is given for each method. The small parameter is either one of the masses, the distance between a pair of particles or the reciprocal of the distances between one particle and the center of mass of the remaining particles. For each case symmetric and non-symmetric periodic solutions are established. For every relative equilibrium solution of the (N ? 1)-body problem each of the six results gives periodic solutions of the N-body problem. Under additional mild non-resonance conditions the results are roughly as follows. Any non-degenerate periodic solutions of the restricted N-body problem can be continued into the full N-body problem. There exist periodic solutions of the N-body problem, where N ? 2 particles and the center of mass of the remaining pair move approximately on a solution of relative equilibrium and the pair move approximately on a small circular orbit of the two-body problems around their center of mass. There exist periodic solutions of the N-body problem, where one small particle and the center of mass of the remaining N ? 1 particles move approximately on a large circular orbit of the two body problems and the remaining N ? 1 bodies move approximately on a solution of relative equilibrium about their center of mass. There are three similar results on the existence of symmetric periodic solutions.     

A locally optimal fast obstacle-avoiding path-planning algorithm

Two algorithms to compute the shortest collision-free paths in the Euclidean plane are presented. The ƒ obstacles assumed to be described by disjoint convex polygons having N vertices in total. After preprocessing time O(N+flogN), a suboptimal shortest path between two arbitrary query points can be found in O(f+NlogN) time using Dijkstra's algorithm and in Θ(N) time using the A¹ algorithm. The space complexity is O(N+f).     

Point regular groups of automorphisms of generalised quadrangles

We study the point regular groups of automorphisms of some of the known generalised quadrangles. In particular we determine all point regular groups of automorphisms of the thick classical generalised quadrangles. We also construct point regular groups of automorphisms of the generalised quadrangle of order (q−1,q+1) obtained by Payne derivation from the classical symplectic quadrangle W(3,q). For q=pf with f?2 we obtain at least two nonisomorphic groups when p?5 and at least three nonisomorphic groups when p=2 or 3. Our groups include nonabelian 2-groups, groups of exponent 9 and nonspecial p-groups. We also enumerate all point regular groups of automorphisms of some small generalised quadrangles.     

Multiple positive solutions of nonhomogeneous elliptic systems with strongly indefinite structure and critical Sobolev exponents

In this paper, we study the existence of multiple positive solutions to some Hamiltonian elliptic systems −Δv=λu+u^p+εf(x), −Δu=μv+v^q+δg(x) in Ω;u,v>0 in Ω; u=v=0 on ∂Ω, where Ω is a bounded domain in R^N (N?3); 0?f, g∈L∞(Ω); 1/(p+1)+1/(q+1)=(N−2)/N, p,q>1; λ,μ>0. Using sub- and supersolution method and based on an adaptation of the dual variational approach, we prove the existence of at least two nontrivial positive solutions for all λ,μ∈(0,λ₁) and ε,δ∈(0,δ₀), where λ₁ is the first eigenvalue of the Laplace operator −Δ with zero Dirichlet boundary conditions and δ₀ is a positive number.     

Piecewise rigidity

In this paper we provide a Liouville type theorem in the framework of fracture mechanics, and more precisely in the theory of SBV deformations for cracked bodies. We prove the following rigidity result: if u∈SBV(Ω,RN) is a deformation of Ω whose associated crack Ju has finite energy in the sense of Griffith's theory (i.e., HN−1(Ju)<∞), and whose approximate gradient ∇u is almost everywhere a rotation, then u is a collection of an at most countable family of rigid motions. In other words, the cracked body does not store elastic energy if and only if all its connected components are deformed through rigid motions. In particular, global rigidity can fail only if the crack disconnects the body.     

A polynomial time algorithm for solving a quality control station configuration problem

We study unreliable serial production lines with known failure probabilities for each operation. Such a production line consists of a series of stations; existing machines and optional quality control stations (QCS). Our aim is to simultaneously decide where and if to install the QCSs along the line and to determine the production rate, so as to maximize the steady state expected net profit per time unit from the system.We use dynamic programming to solve the cost minimization auxiliary problem where the aim is to minimize the time unit production cost for a given production rate. Using the above developed O(N²) dynamic programming algorithm as a subroutine, where N stands for the number of machines in the line, we present an O(N⁴) algorithm to solve the Profit Maximization QCS Configuration Problem.     

An extended replacement policy for a deteriorating system with multi-failure modes

In this paper, the maintenance problem for a deteriorating system with k + 1 failure modes, including an unrepairable failure (catastrophic failure) mode and k repairable failure (non-catastrophic failure) modes, is studied. Assume that the system after repair is not “as good as new” and its deterioration is stochastic. Under these assumptions, an extended replacement policy N is considered: the system will be replaced whenever the number of repairable failures reaches N or the unrepairable failure occurs, whichever occurs first. Our purpose is to determine an optimal extended policy N^∗ such that the average cost rate (i.e. the long-run average cost per unit time) of the system is minimized. The explicit expression of the average cost rate is derived, and the corresponding optimal extended policy N^∗ can be determined analytically or numerically. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate some theoretical results of the repair model proposed in this paper.     

Linear-time compression of 2-manifold polygon meshes into information-theoretically optimal number of bits

The polygon mesh is an important primitive used in representing 3D models. Its specification consists of topological and geometrical quantities; where the former describes the connection nodes, edges and faces, and the latter describes attributes such as node positions, face colors, etc. Our interest here lies with the encoding of the topology. Specifically, this paper presents a linear-time information-theoretically optimal compression algorithm for encoding a planar 2-manifold polygon mesh to a bit string X.     

A construction of 2-designs from Steiner systems and extendable designs

We give a construction of a 2-(mn²+1,mn,(n+1)(mn−1)) design starting from a Steiner system S(2,m+1,mn²+1) and an affine plane of order n. This construction is applied to known classes of Steiner systems arising from affine and projective geometries, Denniston designs, and unitals. We also consider the extendability of these designs to 3-designs.