THE DEGENERACY PROBLEM OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL LINEAR RECURRING ARRAYS

The degeneracy degree and degeneracy position sets of a wo-dimensional linear recurrence relation set are characterized. The fact that a linear recurring array is essentially a doubly periodic array is shown. By using the Grbner base theory, a calculation formula for degeneracy degree is given and the existence of a special degeneracy position set is proved. In the present paper, the degeneracy problem of the two-dimensional linear recurring arrays is completely solved.     

On a double degenerate fourth-order parabolic equation

The existence of solutions to a fourth-order p-Laplacian equation with boundary degeneracy is studied. For the purpose of solving the corresponding non-degenerate (with respect to the coefficient of fourth-order term) regularized problem, a fourth-order semi-discrete elliptic problem with homogeneous boundary conditions is established and its existence and uniqueness are obtained by the functional minimization method. It follows that the approximate solutions of the non-degenerate parabolic problem are constructed and the corresponding existence and uniqueness are discovered by a limit procedure from the energy estimation method and a compactness argument. Finally, the existence and regularity of solutions for the problem with boundary degeneracy is obtained by using a regularization parameter vanishing limit.     

Asymptotic Behavior of Solutions to a Class of Semilinear Parabolic Equations with Boundary Degeneracy

This paper concerns the asymptotic behavior of solutions to one-dimensional semilinear parabolic equations with boundary degeneracy both in bounded and unbounded intervals. For the problem in a bounded interval, it is shown that there exist both nontrivial global solutions for small initial data and blowing-up solutions for large one if the degeneracy is not strong. Whereas in the case that the degeneracy is strong enough, the nontrivial solution must blow up in a finite time. For the problem in an unbounded interval, blowing-up theorems of Fujita type are established. It is shown that the critical Fujita exponent depends on the degeneracy of the equation and the asymptotic behavior of the diffusion coefficient at infinity, and it may be equal to one or infinity. Furthermore, the critical case is proved to belong to the blowing-up case.     

The Tricomi problem for second order linear equations of mixed type with parabolic degeneracy

In Bers, 1958, Mathematical Aspects of Subsonic and Transonic Gas Dynamics (New York: Wiley); Bitsadze, 1988, Some Classes of Partial Differential Equations (New York: Gordon and Breach); Rassias, 1990, Lecture Notes on Mixed Type Partial Differential Equations (Singapore: World Scientific); Salakhitdinov and Islomov, 1987, The Tricomi problem for the general linear equation of mixed type with a nonsmooth line of degeneracy. Soviet Math. Dokl., 34, 133–136; Smirnov, 1978, Equations of Mixed type (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society), the authors posed and discussed the Tricomi problem of second order equations of mixed type with parabolic degeneracy, which possesses important application to gas dynamics. The present article deals with the Tricomi problem for general second order equations of mixed type with parabolic degeneracy. Firstly the formulation of the problem for the equations is given, next the representations and estimates of solutions for the above problem are obtained, finally the existence of solutions for the problem is proved by the successive iteration and the method of parameter extension. In this article, we use the complex method, namely the complex functions in the elliptic domain and the hyperbolic complex functions in hyperbolic domain are used (see Wen, 2002, Linear and Quasilinear Equations of Hyperbolic and Mixed Types (London: Taylor and Francis)).     

On Localization of Solutions of Elliptic Equations with Nonhomogeneous Anisotropic Degeneracy

The work deals with the Dirichlet problem for elliptic equations with nonhomogeneous anisotropic degeneracy in a possibly unbounded domain of multidimensional Euclidean space. The existence of weak solutions is proved. Some conditions are established connecting the character of nonlinearity of the equation and the geometric characteristics of the domain which guarantee the one-dimensional localization (vanishing) of weak solutions. The equation with anisotropic degeneracy is shown to admit localized solutions even in the absence of absorption.     

Weakly redundant constraints and their impact on postoptimal analyses in LP

Suppose that in a mathematical programming problem with a smooth objective function the constraints set is formed by linear inequalities. Then, as is well known, it is possible to determine redundant constraints before the optimization procedure starts. If some of the vertices of the convex polyhedron defined by the linear constraints are degenerate, the known redundancy-determining procedures may fail. Based on the recently developed theory of degeneracy graphs (DG's for short) a procedure is suggested how to proceed in degenerate cases. Weakly redundant constraints which cause degeneracy do have some impact on sensitivity analyses with respect oo the RHS or objective function coefficients. Using again the theory of DG's this impact is analysed. Also procedures are suggested how to perform sensitivity analyses when the degeneracy of the optimal vertex is not caused only by weakly redundant constraints. Small numerical examples are used for illustration.     

Boundary value problem for a class of degenerate quasilinear parabolic equations with singularity

This paper is concerned with a class of quasilinear parabolic equations with singularity and arbitrary degeneracy. The existence and uniqueness of generalized solutions to a kind of boundary value problem is established.     

An Algorithm for Solving the Minimum-Norm Point Problem over the Intersection of a Polytope and an Affine Set

In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for finding the minimum-norm point in the intersection of a polytope and an affine set in an n-dimensional Euclidean space, where the polytope is expressed as the convex hull of finitely many points and the affine set is expressed as the intersection of k hyperplanes, k1. Our algorithm solves the problem by using directly the original points and the hyperplanes, rather than treating the problem as a special case of the general quadratic programming problem. One of the advantages of our approach is that our algorithm works as well for a class of problems with a large number (possibly exponential or factorial in n) of given points if every linear optimization problem over the convex hull of the given points is solved efficiently. The problem considered here is highly degenerate, and we take care of the degeneracy by solving a subproblem that is a conical version of the minimum-norm point problem, where points are replaced by rays. When the number k of hyperplanes expressing the affine set is equal to one, we can easily avoid degeneracy, but this is not the case for k2. We give a subprocedure for treating the degenerate case. The subprocedure is interesting in its own right. We also show the practical efficiency of our algorithm by computational experiments.     

Fitting Social Network Models Using Varying Truncation Stochastic Approximation MCMC Algorithm

The exponential random graph model (ERGM) plays a major role in social network analysis. However, parameter estimation for the ERGM is a hard problem due to the intractability of its normalizing constant and the model degeneracy. The existing algorithms, such as Monte Carlo maximum likelihood estimation (MCMLE) and stochastic approximation, often fail for this problem in the presence of model degeneracy. In this article, we introduce the varying truncation stochastic approximation Markov chain Monte Carlo (SAMCMC) algorithm to tackle this problem. The varying truncation mechanism enables the algorithm to choose an appropriate starting point and an appropriate gain factor sequence, and thus to produce a reasonable parameter estimate for the ERGM even in the presence of model degeneracy. The numerical results indicate that the varying truncation SAMCMC algorithm can significantly outperform the MCMLE and stochastic approximation algorithms: for degenerate ERGMs, MCMLE and stochastic approximation often fail to produce any reasonable parameter estimates, while SAMCMC can do; for nondegenerate ERGMs, SAMCMC can work as well as or better than MCMLE and stochastic approximation. The data and source codes used for this article are available online as supplementary materials.     

Approximate Controllability of the System Governed by Double Coupled Semilinear Degenerate Parabolic Equations

This paper concerns the approximate controllability of the initial-boundary problem of double coupled semilinear degenerate parabolic equations. The equations are degenerate at the boundary, and the control function acts in the interior of the spacial domain and acts only on one equation. We overcome the difficulty of the degeneracy of the equations to show that the problem is approximately controllable in $L^2$ by means of a fixed point theorem and some compact estimates. That is to say, for any initial and desired data in $L^2$, one can find a control function in $L^2$ such that the weak solution to the problem approximately reaches the desired data in $L^2$ at the terminal time.     

Stabilized dynamic constraint aggregation for solving set partitioning problems

Dynamic constraint aggregation (DCA) and dual variable stabilization (DVS) are two methods that can reduce the negative impact of degeneracy when solving linear programs. The first uses a projection to reduce the primal space whereas the second acts in the dual space. In this paper, we develop a new method, called stabilized dynamic constraint aggregation (SDCA), that combines DCA and DVS for solving set partitioning problems. It allows to fight degeneracy from both primal and dual perspectives simultaneously. To assess the effectiveness of SDCA, we report computational results obtained for highly degenerate multi-depot vehicle scheduling problem instances solved by column generation. These results indicate that SDCA can reduce the average computational time of the master problem by a factor of up to 7 with respect to the best of the two combined methods. Furthermore, they show that its performance is robust with regard to increasing levels of degeneracy in test problems.     

Bounds on the number of vertices of perturbed polyhedra

Finding the incident edges to a degenerate vertex of a polyhedron is a non-trivial problem. So pivoting methods generally involve a perturbation argument to overcome the degeneracy problem. But the perturbation entails a bursting of each degenerate vertex into a cluster of nondegenerate vertices. The aim of this paper is to give some bounds on the number of these perturbed vertices.     

Degeneracy Subgraph of the Lemke Complementary Pivot Algorithm and Anticycling Rule

In this paper, we use the theory of degeneracy graphs recently developed by Gal et al. to introduce a graph for studying the adjacency of almost complementary feasible bases, some of which may be degenerate, which are of interest in the context of the linear complementarity problem. We study the structure of this graph with particular reference to the possibility of cycling and various anticycling rules in the Lemke complementary pivoting algorithm. We consider the transition node pivot rule introduced by Geue and show that this rule helps in avoiding cycling in the Lemke complementary pivoting algorithm under a suitable assumption.     

On degeneracy and collapsing in the construction of the set of objective values in a multiple objective linear program

In this paper an algorithm is developed to generate all nondominated extreme points and edges of the set of objective values of a multiple objective linear program. The approach uses simplex tableaux but avoids generating unnecessary extreme points or bases of extreme points. The procedure is based on, and improves, an algorithm Dauer and Liu developed for this problem. Essential to this approach is the work of Gal and Kruse on the neighborhood problem of determining all extreme points of a convex polytope that are adjacent to a given (degenerate) extreme point of the set. The algorithm will incorporate Gal's degeneracy graph approach to the neighborhood problem with Dauer's objective space analysis of multiple objective linear programs.     

A dual approach to primal degeneracy

The Revised Primal Simplex algorithm, in its simplest form, has no defence against degeneracy. Various forms of the perturbation method are usually effective, but most offer no guarantee of avoiding all degeneracy, and can lead to numerical difficulties. This paper presents a method that avoids cycling and circling by taking a dual approach.The degenerate subproblem consists of all the original variables, but only the degenerate transformed constraints. The current primal objective, which may be mixed, is used. This subproblem may be solved using the dual simplex algorithm, starting from the current dual infeasible solution, and with a zero dual objective. If the dual algorithm terminates optimally then the whole problem is optimal (subject to primal feasibility). Otherwise the final solution provides a non-basic direction which improves the value of the mixed primal objective and moves away from the degenerate vertex. A purification algorithm then renders the solution basic and further improves the mixed objective.     

An improved N-tree algorithm for the enumeration of all neighbors of a degenerate vertex

Based on the concept of degeneracy graphs, theoretical and algorithmic aspects of the neighborhood-problem are dealt with. It is shown that any subgraph of a positive degeneracy graph which is induced by a set of nodes feasible with respect to an arbitrary lexicographic pivot selection will supply sufficient information. A special lexicographic pivot selection strategy is presented which leads to an improved version of the N-tree method. The increase in efficiency is illustrated by test results.     

Quenching of solutions to a class of semilinear parabolic equations with boundary degeneracy

This paper concerns the quenching phenomenon of solutions to a class of semilinear parabolic equations with boundary degeneracy. In the case that the degeneracy is not strong, it is shown that there exists a critical length, which is positive, such that the solution exists globally in time if the length of the spatial interval is less than it, while quenches in a finite time if the length of the spatial interval is greater than it. Whereas in the case that the degeneracy is strong enough, the solution must be quenching in a finite time no matter how long the spatial interval is. Furthermore, for each quenching solution, the set of quenching points is determined and it is proved that its derivative with respect to the time must blow up at the quenching time.     

Degeneracy: Demystifying and destigmatizing a core concept in systems biology

Often relegated to the methods section of genetic research articles, the term “degeneracy” is regularly misunderstood and its theoretical significance widely understated. Degeneracy describes the ability of different structures to be conditionally interchangeable in their contribution to system functions. Frequently mislabeled redundancy, degeneracy refers to structural variation whereas redundancy refers to structural duplication. Sources of degeneracy include, but are not limited to, (1) duplicate structures that differentiate yet remain isofunctional, (2) unrelated isofunctional structures that are dispersed endogenously or exogenously, (3) variable arrangements of interacting structures that achieve the same output through multiple pathways, and (4) parcellation of a structure into subunits that can still variably perform the same initial function. The ability to perform the same function by drawing upon an array of dissimilar structures contributes advantageously to the integrity of a system. Drawing attention to the heterogeneous construction of living systems by highlighting the concept of degeneracy valuably enhances the ways scientists think about self‐organization, robustness, and complexity. Labels in science, however, can sometimes be misleading. In scientific nomenclature, the word “degeneracy” has calamitous proximity to the word “degeneration” used by pathologists and the shunned theory of degeneration once promoted by eugenicists. This article disentangles the concept of degeneracy from its close etymological siblings and offers a brief overview of the historical and contemporary understandings of degeneracy in science. Distinguishing the importance of degeneracy will hopefully allow systems theorists to more strategically operationally conceptualize the distributed intersecting networks that comprise complex living systems. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 20: 12–21, 2015     

线性时滞微分方程的点态退化(英文)

本文讨论了线性时滞微分方程的点态退化问题.借助于矩阵的有关知识,我们给出了判定n阶时滞微分方程点态退化的充分必要条件及代数判据.     

Vague matrices in linear programming

This paper deals with so-called vague matrices, the columns of which are convex sets. A special square problem of the vague optimization is analysed. The results form a base for the subsequent outline of an algorithm for solving the LP-problem with a vague matrix. The paper is concluded by the discussion of possible types of degeneracy.