Analysing the effect of technical change on individual outputs using modified quasi-Malmquist indexes

Malmquist indexes can be used to estimate technical change over time. The index generally represents the average effect of technical change on all outputs in a multi-output firm. However, changes in technology do not necessarily affect all outputs involved in the analysis equally. In this paper, a method for estimating the effect of technical change on each of the different outputs is proposed. This estimation is done by a modification of quasi-Malmquist indexes. An artificial data set has been used to validate the method proposed in this paper.     

A branch and bound algorithm for the robust shortest path problem with interval data

Many real problems can be modelled as robust shortest path problems on interval digraphs, where intervals represent uncertainty about real costs and a robust path is not too far from the shortest path for each possible configuration of the arc costs.A branch and bound algorithm for this problem is presented.     

On the Essential Self-Adjointness of Wick Powers of Relativistic Fields and of Fields Unitary Equivalent to Random Fields

The essential self-adjointness on a natural domain of the sharp-time Wick powers of the relativistic free field in two space-time dimension is proven. Other results on Wick powers are reviewed and discussed.     

An approach to deciding the observational equivalence of Algol-like languages

We prove that the observational equivalence of third-order finitary (i.e. recursion-free) Idealized Algol (IA) is decidable using Game Semantics. By modelling the state explicitly in our games, we show that the denotation of a term M of this fragment of IA is a compactly innocent strategy-with-state, i.e. the strategy is generated by a finite view function f_M. Given any such f_M, we construct a real-time deterministic pushdown automaton (DPDA) that recognizes the complete plays of the knowing-strategy denotation of M. Since such plays characterize observational equivalence, and there is an algorithm for deciding whether any two DPDAs recognize the same language, we obtain a procedure for deciding the observational equivalence of third-order finitary IA. Restricted to second-order terms, the DPDA representation cuts down to a deterministic finite automaton; thus our approach gives a new proof of Ghica and McCusker’s regular-expression characterization for this fragment. Our algorithmic representation of program meanings, which is compositional, provides a foundation for model-checking a wide range of behavioural properties of IA and other cognate programming languages. Another result concerns second-order IA with full recursion: we show that observational equivalence for this fragment is undecidable.     

Analysis of end point vibrations of a two-link manipulator by integrated CAD/CAE procedures

In this work, the effect of flexibility on the trajectory of a planar two-link manipulator is studied using integrated computer-aided design/analysis (CAD/CAE) procedures. The solid models and finite element models of the parts of the manipulator are created by using the CAD/CAE software I-DEAS. The assembly is defined, and knowing the payload and the end point trajectory, the velocities and accelerations of the parts, joint forces and driving torques are calculated using the rigid body dynamics. All the time dependent nodal forces acting on the parts including distributed gravity and inertia forces are created in files with the I-DEAS program file format. The finite element vibration analysis of the parts is performed by I-DEAS. The end point vibrations and the deviations from the rigid-body trajectory are analyzed for different types of end point acceleration curves. A circular trajectory is considered as an example. It is observed that the precision of the manipulator can be increased by testing different end point acceleration curves without changing the trajectory and the duration of the end point work. The procedure explained in this work can be used for this purpose successfully.     

The long‐time behaviour of the thermoconvective flow in a porous medium

For the Boussinesq approximation of the equations of coupled heat and fluid flow in a porous medium we show that the corresponding system of partial differential equations possesses a global attractor. We give lower and upper bounds of the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor depending on a physical parameter of the system, namely the Rayleigh number of the flow. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical findings and raise new questions on the structure of the solutions of the system. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some non‐standard problems in viscous flow

Energy bounds are derived for Dirichlet type boundary value problems for the Navier–Stokes and Stokes equations when a combination of the solution values initially and at a later time is prescribed. The bounds are obtained by means of a differential inequality and imply uniqueness and continuous data dependence of the solutions for a range of values of the parameter in the non‐standard auxiliary condition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non-protein amino acids in peptide design

An overview of the use of non-protein amino acids in the design of conformationally well-defined peptides, based on work from the author’s laboratory, is discussed. The crystal structures of several designed oligopeptides illustrate the useα-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib) in the construction of helices, D-amino acids in the design of helix termination segments and^DPro-Xxx segments for nucleating ofβ-hairpin structures.β- andγ-amino acid residues have been used to expand the range of designed polypeptide structures. Dedicated to Professor C N R Rao on his 70th birthday