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.     

A Faster Deterministic Maximum Flow Algorithm

Cheriyan and Hagerup developed a randomized algorithm to compute the maximum flow in a graph with n nodes and m edges in O(mn + n² log²n) expected time. The randomization is used to efficiently play a certain combinatorial game that arises during the computation. We give a version of their algorithm where a general version of their game arises. Then we give a strategy for the game that yields a deterministic algorithm for computing the maximum flow in a directed graph with n nodes and m edges that runs in time O(mn(log_{m/n log n}n)). Our algorithm gives an O(mn) deterministic algorithm for all m/n = Ω(n^ε) for any positive constant ε, and is currently the fastest deterministic algorithm for computing maximum flow as long as m/n = ω(log n).     

The elastoplastic stressed state of a half-plane under local nonstationary heating

We solve the thermoplastic problem for a semi-infinite plate under local nonstationary heating by heat sources. The physical equations are taken to be the relations of the nonisothermic theory of plastic flow associated with the Mises fluidity condition. The solution of the problem is constructed by the method of integral equations and the self-correcting method of sequential loading, where time is taken as the loading parameter. We carry out numerical computations of the stresses in the case of heating a plate with heat output by normal-circular heat sources. We study the problem of optimization of heating regimes in order to introduce favorable residual compressive stresses (from the point of view of hardness) in a given region of a half-plane. Two figures.Translated fromMatematicheskie Metody i Fiziko-Mekhanicheskie Polya, Issue 27, 1988, pp. 29–34.     

Solution of a problem in the optimal estimation of the states of linear dynamical systems

A problem in the optimal estimation of a linear dynamical system is solved under the condition that the effects on the system of noise and observation error belong to a prescribed parallelepiped region.Translated fromVychislitel'naya i Prikladnaya Matematika, No. 69, pp. 110–114, 1989.