Modified edge finite elements for photonic crystals

We consider Maxwell’s equations with periodic coefficients as it is usually done for the modeling of photonic crystals. Using Bloch/Floquet theory, the problem reduces in a standard way to a modification of the Maxwell cavity eigenproblem with periodic boundary conditions. Following [8], a modification of edge finite elements is considered for the approximation of the band gap. The method can be used with meshes of tetrahedrons or parallelepipeds. A rigorous analysis of convergence is presented, together with some preliminary numerical results in 2D, which fully confirm the robustness of the method. The analysis uses well established results on the discrete compactness for edge elements, together with new sharper interpolation estimates.     

Radiation induced effects on particulate composites from epoxy resin and fly-ash

In this paper gamma-radiation damages and effects on an epoxide matrix and on its particulate composite with coal fly ash have been studied; the curing of both formulations was carried out at room temperature by means of tetraethylenepentamine and of a tailored polyalkylenepolyaminophenolic product. The change on mechanical properties following the irradiation in air at room temperature has been tested as a function of the total absorbed dose. The chemical modification induced by the ionizing radiation on the matrices have been investigated by means of infrared spectrophotometry and differential scanning calorimetry. The high radiation resistance of the matrix and above all of the particulate composite suggests its use for the confinment of low and medium activity radwastes (nuclear or medical).     

Non-destructive characterization of compositional and textural properties of Etruscan bronzes: a multi-method approach

A combination of conventional analytical techniques, such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electron microscopy-electron probe microanalysis (SEM-EPMA), with novel applications of neutron scattering were employed for a non-destructive study of 6th century BC Etruscan bronze plates discovered almost two centuries ago in a princely chamber tomb in Umbria, Italy. The pieces were used to richly decorate a ceremonial carriage, two war chariots and some furniture. Analytical investigations have been carried out to provide the essential information to correctly assign several fragments in order to recompose the original plates. Analytical responses from XRF and SEM-EPMA, although indicative, were strongly affected by surface alteration and contamination. Rietveld analysis of neutron diffraction profiles emerged for its powerful capability to provide extensive non-destructive, high sensitivity information on bulk alloy composition and phase quantification allowing meaningful comparison among the pieces for the reconstruction of the original plates. In addition, strain and texture analyses demonstrated the capability of the technique to achieve a non-invasive characterization of manufacturing procedures. PACS 61.12.Ld; 81.40.Ef; 81.05.Bx     

Exact ground states of Ising spin glasses: New experimental results with a branch-and-cut algorithm

In this paper we study two-dimensional Ising spin glasses on a grid with nearest neighbor and periodic boundary interactions, based on a Gaussian bond distribution, and an exterior magnetic field. We show how using a technique called branch and cut, the exact ground states of grids of sizes up to 100×100 can be determined in a moderate amount of computation time, and we report on extensive computational tests. With our method we produce results based on more than 20,000 experiments on the properties of spin glasses whose errors depend only on the assumptions on the model and not on the computational process. This feature is a clear advantage of the method over other, more popular ways to compute the ground state, like Monte Carlo simulation including simulated annealing, evolutionary, and genetic algorithms, that provide only approximate ground states with a degree of accuracy that cannot be determineda priori. Our ground-state energy estimation at zero field is –1.317.     

Study of the sintering behaviour of MgB2 superconductor during hot-pressing

The densification behaviour of MgB₂ was studied when commercial powder was hot-pressed in the temperature range 1070–1190 °C. The mechanisms active during sintering were investigated by continuously recording the shrinkage vs. time and elaborating the data on the basis of Kingery’s model for liquid phase sintering. XRD and SEM analysis on final dense bodies were used to evaluate secondary phases formation during sintering and the effect of magnesium sublimation. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements were also performed to correlate the microstructural and morphological modifications induced by hot-pressing and the superconducting properties.     

Projected Chvátal–Gomory cuts for mixed integer linear programs

Recent experiments by Fischetti and Lodi show that the first Chvátal closure of a pure integer linear program (ILP) often gives a surprisingly tight approximation of the integer hull. They optimize over the first Chvátal closure by modeling the Chvátal–Gomory (CG) separation problem as a mixed integer linear program (MILP) which is then solved by a general- purpose MILP solver. Unfortunately, this approach does not extend immediately to the Gomory mixed integer (GMI) closure of an MILP, since the GMI separation problem involves the solution of a nonlinear mixed integer program or a parametric MILP. In this paper we introduce a projected version of the CG cuts, and study their practical effectiveness for MILP problems. The idea is to project first the linear programming relaxation of the MILP at hand onto the space of the integer variables, and then to derive Chvátal–Gomory cuts for the projected polyhedron. Though theoretically dominated by GMI cuts, projected CG cuts have the advantage of producing a separation model very similar to the one introduced by Fischetti and Lodi, which can typically be solved in a reasonable amount of computing time. Gérard Cornuéjols was supported in part by NSF grant DMI-0352885, ONR grant N00014-03-1-0188, and ANR grant BLAN 06-1-138894. Matteo Fischetti was supported in part by the EU projects ADONET (contract n. MRTN-CT-2003-504438) and ARRIVAL (contract n. FP6-021235-2). Andrea Lodi was supported in part by the EU projects ADONET (contract n. MRTN-CT-2003-504438) and ARRIVAL (contract n. FP6-021235-2).     

An additive bounding procedure for the asymmetric travelling salesman problem

In this paper, new lower bounds for the asymmetric travelling salesman problem are presented, based on spanning arborescences. The new bounds are combined in an additive procedure whose theoretical performance is compared with that of the Balas and Christofides procedure (1981). Both procedures have been imbedded in a simple branch and bound algorithm and experimentally evaluated on hard test problems.