State-dependent Coupling of Quasireversible Nodes

The seminal paper of Jackson began a chain of research on queueing networks with product-form stationary distributions which continues strongly to this day. Hard on the heels of the early results on queueing networks followed a series of papers which discussed the relationship between product-form stationary distributions and the quasireversibility of network nodes. More recently, the definition of quasireversibility and the coupling mechanism between nodes have been extended so that they apply to some of the later product-form queueing networks incorporating negative customers, signals, and batch movements.In parallel with this research, it has been shown that some special queueing networks can have arrival and service parameters which depend upon the network state, rather than just the node state, and still retain a generalised product-form stationary distribution.In this paper we begin by offering an alternative proof of a product-form result of Chao and Miyazawa and then build on this proof by postulating a state-dependent coupling mechanism for a quasireversible network. Our main theorem is that the resultant network has a generalised product form stationary distribution. We conclude the paper with some examples.     

Existence and multiplicity for positive solutions of a system of higher-order multi-point boundary value problems

We investigate the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions of multi-point boundary value problems for systems of nonlinear higher-order ordinary differential equations.     

Transglobal Evidentialism-Reliabilism

We propose an approach to epistemic justification that incorporates elements of both reliabilism and evidentialism, while also transforming these elements in significant ways. After briefly describing and motivating the non-standard version of reliabilism that Henderson and Horgan call “transglobal” reliabilism, we harness some of Henderson and Horgan’s conceptual machinery to provide a non-reliabilist account of propositional justification (i.e., evidential support). We then invoke this account, together with the notion of a transglobally reliable belief-forming process, to give an account of doxastic justification.

Nonexistence of a class of variate generation schemes

Motivated by a problem arising in the regenerative analysis of discrete-event system simulation, we ask whether a certain class of random variate generation schemes exists or not. Under very reasonable conditions, we prove that such variate generation schemes do not exist. The implications of this result for regenerative steady-state simulation of discrete-event systems are discussed.     

Computer-aided spillway design using the boundary element method and non-linear programming

The general context of this paper is to support the design of spillways by a direct mathematical approach instead of trial-and-error methods. First, a two-dimensional model is formulated to determine the free surface and the discharge for a stationary, incompressible, homogeneous, non-viscous and irrotational flow over a fixed spillway. The flow satisfies the Laplace equation and the Bernoulli equation (potential flow). An important feature of the model is that it can be extended to design the spillway structure when the spillway is not fixed but the pressure on the spillway is described by a cavitation criterion. Next, the continuous model is discretized by the boundary element method (BEM). We use a non-linear programming algorithm to calculate the pressures and the shape of the spillway. A computer-aided design package is developed on a PC using the equations describing the free surface, the BEM and standard optimization techniques. The input and output of the model are realized using graphical routines. Finally, we discuss the convergence and the computation time of the algorithms.