Availability of inspected systems subject to shocks – A matrix algorithmic approach

We examine the limiting average availability of a maintained system that deteriorates due to random shock process and as a response to its usage (wear out). System’s failures are not self-announcing, hence, failures must be detected via inspection. We consider randomly occurring shocks that arrive according to a Poisson process and cumulatively damage the system. Two models are considered: in Model 1 the shock and wear out processes are independent of the external environment and in Model 2, the shocks arrival rate, the shock magnitudes and the wear out rate are governed by a random environment which evolves as a Markov process. We obtain the system’s availability for both models.     

Bessel identities in the waldspurger correspondence over the real numbers

We prove certain identities between Bessel functions attached to irreducible unitary representations ofPGL ₂(R) and Bessel functions attached to irreducible unitary representations of the double cover ofSL ₂(R). These identities give a correspondence between such representations which turns out to be the Waldspurger correspondence. In the process we prove several regularity theorems for Bessel distributions which appear in the relative trace formula. In the heart of the proof lies a classical result of Weber and Hardy on a Fourier transform of classical Bessel functions. This paper constitutes the local (real) spectral theory of the relative trace formula for the Waldspurger correspondence for which the global part was developed by Jacquet. Research of first author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0070762. Research of second author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-9729992 and DMS 9971003.     

On balking from an empty queue

The intuition while observing the economy of queueing systems, is that one’s motivation to join the system, decreases with its level of congestion. Here we present a queueing model where sometimes the opposite is the case. The point of departure is the standard first-come first-served single server queue with Poisson arrivals. Customers commence service immediately if upon their arrival the server is idle. Otherwise, they are informed if the queue is empty or not. Then, they have to decide whether to join or not. We assume that the customers are homogeneous and when they consider whether to join or not, they assess their queueing costs against their reward due to service completion. As the whereabouts of customers interact, we look for the (possibly mixed) join/do not join Nash equilibrium strategy, a strategy that if adopted by all, then under the resulting steady-state conditions, no one has any incentive not to follow it oneself. We show that when the queue is empty then depending on the service distribution, both ‘avoid the crowd’ (ATC) and ‘follow the crowd’ (FTC) scenarios (as well as none-of-the-above) are possible. When the queue is not empty, the situation is always that of ATC. Also, we show that under Nash equilibrium it is possible (depending on the service distribution) that the joining probability when the queue is empty is smaller than it is when the queue is not empty. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation Grant No. 237/02.     

Minimal polynomials and radii of elements in finite-dimensional power-associative algebras

In the first section of this paper we revisit the definition and some of the properties of the minimal polynomial of an element of a finite-dimensional power-associative algebra over an arbitrary field . Our main observation is that , the minimal polynomial of , may depend not only on , but also on the underlying algebra. More precisely, if is a subalgebra of , and if is the minimal polynomial of in , then may differ from , in which case we have .

In the second section we restrict attention to the case where is either the real or the complex numbers, and define , the radius of an element in , to be the largest root in absolute value of the minimal polynomial of . We show that possesses some of the familiar properties of the classical spectral radius. In particular, we prove that is a continuous function on .

In the third and last section, we deal with stability of subnorms acting on subsets of finite-dimensional power-associative algebras. Following a brief survey, we enhance our understanding of the subject with the help of our findings of the previous section. Our main new result states that if , a subset of an algebra , satisfies certain assumptions, and is a continuous subnorm on , then is stable on if and only if majorizes the radius defined above.

     

Finite generation of powers of ideals

Suppose is a maximal ideal of a commutative integral domain and that some power of is finitely generated. We show that is finitely generated in each of the following cases: (i) is of height one, (ii) is integrally closed and , (iii) is a monoid domain over a field , where is a cancellative torsion-free monoid such that , and is the maximal ideal . We extend the above results to ideals of a reduced ring such that is Noetherian. We prove that a reduced ring is Noetherian if each prime ideal of has a power that is finitely generated. For each with , we establish existence of a -dimensional integral domain having a nonfinitely generated maximal ideal of height such that is -generated.

     

Preconditioning spectral element schemes for definite and indefinite problems

Spectral element schemes for the solution of elliptic boundary value problems are considered. Preconditioning methods based on finite difference and finite element schemes are implemented. Numerical experiments show that inverting the preconditioner by a single multigrid iteration is most efficient and that the finite difference preconditioner is superior to the finite element one for both definite and indefinite problems. A multigrid preconditioner is also derived from the finite difference preconditioner and is found suitable for the CGS acceleration method. It is pointed out that, for the finite difference and finite element preconditioners, CGS does not always converge to the accurate algebraic solution. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 15: 535–543, 1999     

C-Programming: An outline

This paper presents the essentials of a method designed to solve optimization problems whose objective functions are of the form g(x)+ ψ(u(x)), where ψ is differentiable and either concave or convex. It is shown that solutions to such problems can be obtained through the solutions of the Lagrangian problem whose objective function is of the form g(x)+ λu(x).     

Dynamic investigation of triangles inscribed in a circle,which tend to an equilateral triangle

We present a geometrical investigation of the process of creating an infinite sequence of triangles inscribed in a circle, whose areas, perimeters and lengths of radii of the inscribed circles tend to a limit in a monotonous manner.

First, using geometrical software, we investigate four theorems that represent interesting geometrical properties, after which we present formal proofs that rest on a combination between different fields of mathematics: trigonometry, algebra and geometry, and the use of the concept of standard deviation that is taken from statistics.