Stochastic Visual Interactive Simulation Models

Many writers and practitioners have mentioned the difficulties that result from randomness in visual interactive simulation or animated simulation modelling. This paper discusses the use of VIS to model transient system behaviour, and proposes some approaches to stochastic VIS modelling which may be helpful in overcoming the difficulties.     

A Simplex-Type Algorithm for General Transportation Problems: An Alternative to Stepping-Stone

This paper re-examines use of the linear programming (LP) formulation to solve the transportation problem (TP). The proposed method is a general-purpose algorithm which uses only one operation, the Gauss Jordan pivoting used in the simplex method. The final tableau can be used for post-optimality analysis of TP. This algorithm appears to be faster than simplex, more general than stepping-stone and simpler than both in solving general TP. A numerical example illustrates the methodology. It is assumed the reader is familiar with simplex terminology.     

On the stability of the output characteristics of a grazing incidence grating dye laser transversely pumped by a copper vapor laser

The output characteristics of a high repetition rate pulsed dye laser has both short-term fluctuations and long-term drift. In high power high repetition rate lasers flow induced variations dominate over those due to other factors. In this paper it is shown by dye laser measurements that bandwidth fluctuations can be traced to the effective changes of the resonator dispersion due to fluctuations in the penetration depth of the pump beam in the dye medium. Short-term wavelength fluctuations can be traced to instantaneous deflection of the dye laser axis by the refractive index changes due to absorption of the pump beam. The fluctuations in both the bandwidth and the wavelength decreases with increasing flow rates within a laminar region. A copper vapor laser operating at 5.6 kHz repetition rate pumped the Rhodamine 6G dye laser used. The wavelength fluctuation of ±0.0035, 0.0030, 0.0004 nm and the bandwidth fluctuation of ±710, 132, 45 MHz over approx. 60 minutes were observed at 1.2, 3.7, 5.5 lpm flow rates respectively.     

On nearly parallel G2-structures

A nearly parallel G₂-structure on a seven-dimensional Riemannian manifold is equivalent to a spin structure with a Killing spinor. We prove general results about the automorphism group of such structures and we construct new examples. We classify all nearly parallel G₂-manifolds with large symmetry group and in particular all homogeneous nearly parallel G₂-structures.     

Kravchuk polynomials and group representations

Kravchuk polynomials of a discrete variable and different types of Kravchuk q-polynomials are determined. The importance of these polynomials for the theory of representations of Lie and Chevalley groups and the theory of symmetric and quantum groups is shown. The article presents a survey of the contemporary results in these areas.Translated from Ukrainskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 44, No. 7, pp. 888–901, July, 1992.     

Strong interactions at low energies

The lectures review some of the basic concepts relevant for an understanding of the low energy properties of the strong interactions: chiral symmetry, spontaneous symmetry breakdown, Goldstone bosons, quark condensate. The effective field theory used to analyze the low energy structure is briefly sketched. As an illustration, I discuss the implications of the recent data on the decay K→ππeν for the magnitude of the quark condensate.     

Weather Risk in Offshore Projects

Risk analysis tools have been used to help manage various projects. This paper describes a case study in which an extension to the stochastic project network model was developed for a risk analysis of an oil platform installation, quantifying the possible impact of the weather on the project's schedule. Examination of the weather data suggested the use of a Markov weather model combined with a separate residence time distribution for key states. The weather model was incorporated into the stochastic project network allowing the interactions of the various project uncertainties to be examined. While the weather introduced a significant additional risk to the project, analysis of management's options indicated that much of the risk might be avoided. In particular, the analysis quantified the benefits of scheduling the project start to take advantage of the seasonal variations and hiring heavy duty equipment to operate in more arduous conditions.     

Optimal Server Acquisition in Open Queueing Networks

Several production and flexible manufacturing systems can naturally be modelled using queueing networks. In this paper, we consider the problem of acquiring servers for the nodes of an open queueing network, so as to optimize the steady-state mean virtual system parameters subject to a budget constraint. A partial enumeration scheme and a heuristic method have been proposed to solve this problem. Empirical results based on randomly generated test problems are used to identify a class of problems for which the heuristic performs well.     

On the reconstruction index of permutation groups: semiregular groups

Summary. The reconstruction index of all semiregular permutation groups is determined. We show that this index satisfies 3 ￡ r(G, W) ￡ 5 3 \leq \rho(G, \Omega) \leq 5 and we classify the groups in each case.