A refined mixed finite-element method for the stationary Navier Stokes equations with mixed boundary conditions

Serge Nicaise ^{This paper is concerned with the mixed formulation of the Navier–Stokesequations with mixed boundary conditions in 2D polygonal domainsand its numerical approximation. We first describe the regularityof any solution. The problem is then approximated by a mixedfinite-element method where the strain tensor and the antisymmetricgradient tensor, quantities of practical importance, are introducedas new unknowns. An existence result for the finite-elementsolution and convergence results are proved near a nonsingularsolution. Quasi-optimal error estimates are finally presented.}     

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.     

A modified Newton method for solving non-symmetric algebraic Riccati equations arising in transport theory

Liang Bao ^{The non-symmetric algebraic Riccati equation arising in transporttheory can be rewritten as a vector equation and the minimalpositive solution of the non-symmetric algebraic Riccati equationcan be obtained by solving the vector equation. In this paper,we apply the modified Newton method to solve the vector equation.Some convergence results are presented. Numerical tests showthat the modified Newton method is feasible and effective, andoutperforms the Newton method.}     

Dynamic frictionless contact in linear viscoelasticity

David E. Stewart Department of Mathematics, University of Iowa, Iowa, IA 52242, USA ^{In this work, we formulate a dynamic frictionless contact problemwith linear viscoelasticity of Kelvin–Voigt type, basedon the Signorini contact conditions. We show existence of solutions,and investigate the possibility for obtaining an energy balance.Employing time discretization and the finite-element method,we compute numerical solutions. Our numerical scheme is implementedwith non-smooth Newton's method which solves the complementarityproblem. The numerical results support the idea that the energylosses in the limit of the numerical solution are equal to thelosses due to viscosity.}     

Statistical solution to the capacity problem in direct-sequence code-division multiple-access communication systems

Tohru Kohda Department of Computer Science and Communication Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan Minoru Tabata Department of Mathematical Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka 599-8531, Japan Email: eshima{at}med.oita-u.ac.jp Received on September 21, 2005; Accepted on May 2, 2006 Capacity in the direct-sequence code-division multiple-access(DS/CDMA) communication system was considered according to thecode acquisition performance with the conventional serial-searchmethod, because code acquisition needs a difficult operation.Since capacity in DS/CDMA systems is defined by the maximumnumber of users that can simultaneously transmit their signalswith the same carrier frequencies, assuring a larger capacityis very important in DS/CDMA systems with respect to the economyof frequency source. This paper reconsiders the capacity problemthrough a statistical approach to code acquisition. First, aDS/CDMA system model is reviewed. Second, properties of thecounting method for code acquisition are discussed. It is provedthat the method can acquire the target user's code under anynumber of interference users that simultaneously transmit theirsignals, and that the method can guarantee a considerable precisionin code acquisition. Third, an observation time necessary forcode acquisition is given from a statistical discussion, andthe original counting method is modified into a simpler one.It is concluded that the capacity of the DS/CDMA communicationsystem can be set by the ‘bit error-rate-based capacityor signal-to-noise ratio-based capacity’, i.e. ‘post-acquisition-basedcriterion’, rather than the ‘acquisition-based capacity’.     

A posteriori estimates for approximations of time-dependent Stokes equations

Charalambos Makridakis ^{In this paper, we derive a posteriori error estimates for space-discreteapproximations of the time-dependent Stokes equations. By usingan appropriate Stokes reconstruction operator, we are able towrite an auxiliary error equation, in pointwise form, that satisfiesthe exact divergence-free condition. Thus, standard energy estimatesfrom partial differential equation theory can be applied directly,and yield a posteriori estimates that rely on available correspondingestimates for the stationary Stokes equation. Estimates of optimalorder in L(L2) and L(H1) for the velocity are derived for finite-elementand finite-volume approximations.}     

Asymptotic behaviour of a finite-volume scheme for the transient drift-diffusion model

Francis Filbet Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR 5208, Institut Camille Jordan, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France Received on 28 June 2006. Revised on 6 December 2006. In this paper, we propose a finite-volume discretization formultidimensional nonlinear drift-diffusion system. Such a systemarises in semiconductors modelling and is composed of two parabolicequations and an elliptic one. We prove that the numerical solutionconverges to a steady state when time goes to infinity. Severalnumerical tests show the efficiency of the method.     

Exponentially convergent parallel algorithm for nonlinear eigenvalue problems

A. V. Klimenko, V. L. Makarov ^{A new algorithm for nonlinear eigenvalue problems is proposed.The numerical technique is based on a perturbation of the coefficientsof differential equation combined with the Adomian decompositionmethod for the nonlinear part. The approach provides an exponentialconvergence rate with a base which is inversely proportionalto the index of the eigenvalue under consideration. The eigenpairscan be computed in parallel. Numerical examples are presentedto support the theory. They are in good agreement with the spectralasymptotics obtained by other authors.}     

Pricing vulnerable European options with stochastic default barriers

CF Lo and KC Ku Institute of Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China Email: cho-hoi_hui{at}hkma.gov.hk Received on 31 July 2006. Accepted on 15 March 2007. This paper develops a valuation model of European options incorporatinga stochastic default barrier, which extends a constant defaultbarrier proposed in the Hull–White model. The defaultbarrier is considered as an option writer's liability. Closed-formsolutions of vulnerable European option values based on themodel are derived to study the impact of the stochastic defaultbarriers on option values. The numerical results show that negativecorrelation between the firm values and the stochastic defaultbarriers of option writers gives material reductions in optionvalues where the options are written by firms with leverageratios corresponding to BBB or BB ratings.     

A calibration algorithm for simulation-based pricing models

Don L. McLeish Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo,Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada Corresponding author. Email: mreesor{at}uwo.ca Email: dlmcleis{at}math.uwaterloo.ca Received on 20 February 2007. Accepted on 15 March 2007. Derivative pricing models require calibration to market conditionsin order to determine quantities such as hedging positions andthe prices of other instruments. For stochastic models and/orcomplex derivatives whose prices are not of an analytic form,prices must be computed via simulation and the calibration ismore difficult. A method to facilitate the calibration of simulation-basedpricing models is proposed. The algorithm uses a statisticallydesigned experiment to select the points at which simulationsare performed. The method is quite general as it is independentof the stochastic model for the underlying and allows for differentobjective functions that can incorporate information such asopen interest and volume. Furthermore, market prices from European-and/or American-style derivatives covering a range of strikeprices and maturities can be handled by this technique. Examplesshow the procedure is successful at calibrating well-known assetpricing models to both simulated and market data.     

Solving the stochastic steady-state diffusion problem using multigrid

Darran Furnival ^{We study multigrid for solving the stochastic steady-state diffusionproblem. We operate under the mild assumption that the diffusioncoefficient takes the form of a finite Karhunen-Loèveexpansion. The problem is discretized using a finite-elementmethodology using the polynomial chaos method to discretizethe stochastic part of the problem. We apply a multigrid algorithmto the stochastic problem in which the spatial discretizationis varied from grid to grid while the stochastic discretizationis held constant. We then show, theoretically and experimentally,that the convergence rate is independent of the spatial discretization,as in the deterministic case, and the stochastic discretization.}     

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.}