Operations in A-theory

A construction for Segal operations for K-theory of categories with cofibrations, weak equivalences and a biexact pairing is given and coherence properties of the operations are studied. The model for K-theory, which is used, allows coherence to be studied by means of (symmetric) monoidal functors. In the case of Waldhausen A-theory it is shown how to recover the operations used in Waldhausen (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Vol. 967, Springer, Berlin, 1982, pp. 390-409) for the A-theory Kahn-Priddy theorem. The total Segal operation for A-theory, which assembles exterior power operations, is shown to carry a natural infinite loop map structure. The basic input is the un-delooped model for K-theory, which has been developed from a construction by Grayson and Gillet for exact categories in Gunnarsson et al. (J. Pure Appl. Algebra 79 (1992) 255), and Grayson's setup for operations in Grayson (K-theory (1989) 247). The relevant material from these sources is recollected followed by observations on equivariant objects and pairings. Grayson's conditions are then translated to the context of categories with cofibrations and weak equivalences. The power operations are shown to be well behaved w.r.t. suspension and are extended to algebraic K-theory of spaces. Staying close with the philosophy of Waldhausen (1982) Waldhausen's maps are found. The Kahn-Priddy theorem follows from splitting the “free part” off the equivariant theory. The treatment of coherence of the total operation in A-theory involves results from Laplaza (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Vol. 281, Springer, Berlin, 1972, pp. 29-65) and restriction to spherical objects in the source of the operation.     

Complete ideals and singularities of space curves

We consider complete ideals supported on finite sequences of infinitely near points, in regular local rings with dimensions greater than two. We study properties of factorizations in Lipman special *-simple complete ideals. We relate it to a type of proximity, linear proximity, of the points, and give conditions in order to have unique factorization. Several examples are presented. Received: 2 February 2000 / in final form: 14 March 2001 / Published online: 18 January 2002     

On a bifurcation governed by hysteresis nonlinearity

We consider autonomous systems with a nonlinear part depending on a parameter and study Hopf bifurcations at infinity. The nonlinear part consists of the nonlinear functional term and the Prandtl--Ishlinskii hysteresis term. The linear part of the system has a special form such that the close-loop system can be considered as a hysteresis perturbation of a quasilinear Hamiltonian system. The Hamiltonian system has a continuum of arbitrarily large cycles for each value of the parameter. We present sufficient conditions for the existence of bifurcation points for the non-Hamiltonian system with hysteresis. These bifurcation points are determined by simple characteristics of the hysteresis nonlinearity.     

CMS physics overview

The principal physics goals of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment under construction at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva are reviewed. Procedures to search for the Standard Model Higgs boson, supersymmetric Higgses and other supersymmetric particles are described.     

The Third-Order Singular-Perturbation Expansion of the Planar Cold-Fluid Magnetron Equations

The singular-perturbation expansion of the plasma cold-fluid equations for crossed fields in a planar geometry is presented. The general expansion is carried out to third order. Various instabilities that occur in the first, second, and third orders are discussed.     

On the analysis of a dynamic evolutionary algorithm

Evolutionary algorithms are applied as problem-independent optimization algorithms. They are quite efficient in many situations. However, it is difficult to analyze even the behavior of simple variants of evolutionary algorithms like the (1+1) EA on rather simple functions. Nevertheless, only the analysis of the expected run time and the success probability within a given number of steps can guide the choice of the free parameters of the algorithms. Here static (1+1) EAs with a fixed mutation probability are compared with dynamic (1+1) EAs with a simple schedule for the variation of the mutation probability. The dynamic variant is first analyzed for functions typically chosen as example-functions for evolutionary algorithms. Afterwards, it is shown that it can be essential to choose the suitable variant of the (1+1) EA. More precisely, functions are presented where each static (1+1) EA has exponential expected run time while the dynamic variant has polynomial expected run time. For other functions it is shown that the dynamic (1+1) EA has exponential expected run time while a static (1+1) EA with a good choice of the mutation probability has polynomial run time with overwhelming probability.     

Simple, expedient methods for the determination of water and electrolyte contents of cellulose solvent systems

The concentrations of water, W, and electrolytes present in solutions of LiCl in N,N-dimethylacetamide, LiCl/DMAc, and of tetrabutylammonium fluoride. x-hydrate in DMSO, TBAF.xW/DMSO can be accurately and expediently determined by three independent methods, UV–vis, FTIR and EMF measurement. The first relies on the use of solvatochromic probes whose spectra are sensitive to solution composition. It is applicable to W/LiCl/DMAc solutions but not to TBAF.xW/DMSO, because the charge-transfer complex bands of the probes are suppressed by strong interactions with the latter electrolyte. Integration of ν_OH band of water may be employed in order to determine [W], hence [electrolyte] by weight difference. EMF measurement uses ion-selective electrodes in order to determine [electrolyte], hence [W] by weight difference. Results of the latter method were in excellent agreement with those of FTIR. The reason for the failure of Karl Fischer titration is addressed, and the relevance of the results obtained to functionalization of cellulose under homogenous solution conditions is briefly commented on.     

Two modifications of the least cost per period heuristic for dynamic lot-sizing

This paper proposes two constructive heuristics for the well-known single-level uncapacitated dynamic lot-sizing problem. The proposed heuristics, called net least period cost (nLPC) and nLPC(i), are developed by modifying the average period cost concept from Silver and Meal's heuristic, commonly known as least period cost (LPC). An improved tie-breaking stopping rule and a locally optimal decision rule are proposed in the second heuristic to enhance performance. We test the effectiveness of the proposed heuristics by using 20 benchmarking test problems frequently used in the literature. Furthermore, we perform a large-scale simulation study involving three factors, 50 experimental conditions, and 100?000 randomly generated problems to evaluate the proposed heuristics against LPC and six other well-known constructive heuristics in the literature. The simulation results show that both nLPC and nLPC(i) produce average holding and setup costs lower than or equal to those of LPC in every one of the 50 experimental conditions. The proposed heuristics also outperform each of the six other heuristics evaluated in all experimental conditions, without an increase in computational requirements. Lastly, considering that both nLPC and nLPC(i) are fairly simple for practitioners to understand and that lot-sizing heuristics have been commonly used in practice, there should be a very good chance for practical applications of the proposed heuristics.