An Overview of Scheduling Problems Arising in Satellite Communications

Satellite communications, like batches of work in a job shop, need to be scheduled in order to use their resources as efficiently as possible. The most common satellite communications system in use today is known as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), in which data from earth stations is buffered before being transmitted to the appropriate receiver on a satellite. Cycles of transmission are fixed for all stations. Since the same satellite will be used for routeing data in several different ways, a schedule must be devised to use the receivers, repeaters and transmitters on board to minimize the time needed for completion of a batch of work. This paper is a survey of current scheduling algorithms used for optimizing satellite communications resources. Apart from telecommunications, the methods presented here could be applied to more general scheduling problems with renewable resources but without precedence constraints.     

Calorimeter energy calibration using the energy conservation law

A new calorimeter energy calibration method was developed for the proposed ILC detectors. The method uses the center-of-mass energy of the accelerator as the reference. It has been shown that using the energy conservation law it is possible to make ECAL and HCAL cross calibration to reach a good energy resolution for the simple calorimeter energy sum.      

A possibility of parallel and anti-parallel diffraction measurements on neutron diffractometer employing bent perfect crystal monochromator at the monochromatic focusing condition

In a conventional diffractometer having single monochromator, only one position, parallel position, is used for the diffraction experiment (i.e. detection) because the resolution property of the other one, anti-parallel position, is very poor. However, a bent perfect crystal (BPC) monochromator at monochromatic focusing condition can provide a quite flat and equal resolution property at both parallel and anti-parallel positions and thus one can have a chance to use both sides for the diffraction experiment. From the data of the FWHM and the Δd/d measured on three diffraction geometries (symmetric, asymmetric compression and asymmetric expansion), we can conclude that the simultaneous diffraction measurement in both parallel and anti-parallel positions can be achieved.     

Comment on “The Free Will Theorem”

In a recent paper Conway and Kochen, Found. Phys. 36, 2006, claim to have established that theories of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (RW) type, i.e., of spontaneous wave function collapse, cannot be made relativistic. On the other hand, relativistic GRW-type theories have already been presented, in my recent paper, J. Stat. Phys. 125, 2006, and by Dowker and Henson, J. Stat. Phys. 115, 2004. Here, I elucidate why these are not excluded by the arguments of Conway and Kochen.      

How many black holes fit on the head of a pin?

The Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of certain black holes can be computed microscopically in string theory by mapping the elusive problem of counting microstates of a strongly gravitating black hole to the tractable problem of counting microstates of a weakly coupled D-brane system, which has no event horizon, and indeed comfortably fits on the head of a pin. We show here that, contrary to widely held beliefs, the entropy of spherically symmetric black holes can easily be dwarfed by that of stationary multi-black-hole “molecules” of the same total charge and energy. Thus, the corresponding pin-sized D-brane systems do not even approximately count the microstates of a single black hole, but rather those of a zoo of entropically dominant multicentered configurations. Fourth Award in the 2007 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.     

Algebro-Geometric Approach in the Theory of Integrable Hydrodynamic Type Systems

The algebro-geometric approach for integrability of semi-Hamiltonian hydrodynamic type systems is presented. The class of symmetric hydrodynamic type systems is defined and the calculation of the associated Riemann surfaces is greatly simplified for this class. Many interesting and physically motivated examples are investigated.     

On the Zero-Energy-Limit Solution for the Modified Gross–Pitaevskii Equation

The modified Gross–Pitaevskii equation was derived and solved to obtain the 1D solution in the zero-energy limit. This stationary solution could account for the dominated contributions due to the kinetic effect as well as the chemical potential in inhomogeneous Bose gases.     

Controlling global stochasticity of Hamiltonian systems by nonlinear perturbation

A method of controlling global stochasticity in Hamiltonian systems by applying nonlinear perturbation is proposed. With the well-known standard map we demonstrate that this control method can convert global stochasticity into regular motion in a wide chaotic region for arbitrary initial condition, in which the control signal remains very weak after a few kicks. The system in which chaos has been controlled approximates to the original Hamiltonian system, and this approach appears robust against small external noise. The mechanism underlying this high control efficiency is intuitively explained. Received 15 January 2002 Published online 6 June 2002     

Properties of<Emphasis Type="Italic">B</Emphasis><Subscript>c</Subscript> meson

The mass spectrum ofcb meson is investigated with an effective quark-antiquark potential of the form -α_c/r +Ar ^νwith ν varying from 0.5 to 2.0. TheS andP-wave masses, pseudoscalar decay constant, weak decay partial widths in spectator model and the lifetime ofB _cmeson are computed. The properties calculated here are found to be in good agreement with other theoretical and experimental values at potential index,ν = 1