Workstage repair policies for sequential manufacturing systems

Dynamic stage repair policies where the stage repair probabilities are determined by the number of items in the buffer are examined through a model of a manufacturing system with two unreliable workstages connected by a minimal intermediate storage buffer. Definitions for workstage availability and line balance are extended for sequential manufacturing systems with dynamic repair policies. A measure for stage repair inputs and a general form of dynamic stage repair policies are presented. The steady-state probabilities of the resultant state-inhomogeneous Markov chain are computed by an efficient solution procedure. Insights obtained from extensive numerical studies are illustrated and discussed.     

Vibrations of a magnet levitated over a flat superconductor

Based on a dipole-dipole interaction model, we discuss the levitation force and related vibration problems to understand the effects of flux pinning in type-II superconductors, and the applications of levitation in superconducting systems.     

Rotational spectra of isotopic species of SO2F2: experimental and ab initio structures

The rotational spectra of ³⁴SO₂F₂ and S¹⁸O¹⁶OF₂ have been measured in their ground vibrational state between 9 and 110 GHz. Accurate rotational constants have been derived. Various experimental structures including the average structure have been determined. The ab initio structure has been calculated at the CCSD(T) level of theory. The different structures are compared and the best equilibrium structure is the ab initio structure: r_e(SO)=1.401 (3) Å, r_e(SF)=1.532 (3) Å, ∠_e(OSO)=124.91(20)°, ∠_e(FSF)=95.53 (20)°.     

Low Cost, High Efficiency, Gain Flattened L Band EDFA Using FBGs as C Band Seed Generators

A low cost, coolerless 980nm diode pumped, gain flattened L band EDFA with fast transient control, high pump efficiency and gain clamping effect was realized by using FBGs as C band seed generators.     

Pattern formation on a nonlinear periodic electrical network

It is observed experimentally that a periodic array of resistively coupled LC-oscillators with ans-shaped nonlinearity exhibits stable non-uniform voltage and current distributions. The dependence of the resulting structure on the coupling resistance and the boundary conditions is investigated. The structure is rather insensitive to variations of the boundary values. The experiments are well described by a two-variable reaction-diffusion equation.     

Inhomogeneous Voter Models in One Dimension

We establish conditions for survival and extinction of types of one-dimensional voter models, and show that increasing the flip rates at a finite number of sites typically does not affect survival, unless the flipping mechanism is altered. We provide an example of a modified voter model that does not survive but can be made to survive simply by altering the flip mechanism at one site. We also show that a rather general class of such models have clustering behavior.     

The Sample Average Approximation Method Applied to Stochastic Routing Problems: A Computational Study

The sample average approximation (SAA) method is an approach for solving stochastic optimization problems by using Monte Carlo simulation. In this technique the expected objective function of the stochastic problem is approximated by a sample average estimate derived from a random sample. The resulting sample average approximating problem is then solved by deterministic optimization techniques. The process is repeated with different samples to obtain candidate solutions along with statistical estimates of their optimality gaps.We present a detailed computational study of the application of the SAA method to solve three classes of stochastic routing problems. These stochastic problems involve an extremely large number of scenarios and first-stage integer variables. For each of the three problem classes, we use decomposition and branch-and-cut to solve the approximating problem within the SAA scheme. Our computational results indicate that the proposed method is successful in solving problems with up to 2¹⁶⁹⁴ scenarios to within an estimated 1.0% of optimality. Furthermore, a surprising observation is that the number of optimality cuts required to solve the approximating problem to optimality does not significantly increase with the size of the sample. Therefore, the observed computation times needed to find optimal solutions to the approximating problems grow only linearly with the sample size. As a result, we are able to find provably near-optimal solutions to these difficult stochastic programs using only a moderate amount of computation time.     

Decay of neutron-rich Ga isotopes near N = 50 at PARRNe

The PARRNe facility has been used to produce neutron-rich isotopes ^83,84Gaby the ISOL method. Their decay has been studied, and β-γ coincidence and γ-γ coincidence data were collected as a function of time. The first two excited levels in ⁸³Ge and the first excited level in ⁸⁴Ge have been measured for the first time.