Uniqueness of structures for connective covers

We refine our earlier work on the existence and uniqueness of structures on -theoretic spectra to show that the connective versions of real and complex -theory as well as the connective Adams summand at each prime have unique structures as commutative -algebras. For the -completion we show that the McClure-Staffeldt model for is equivalent as an ring spectrum to the connective cover of the periodic Adams summand . We establish a Bousfield equivalence between the connective cover of the Lubin-Tate spectrum and .

     

The truncated Witten genus

In this paper we define and examine the truncated Witten genus. It is defined as the equivariant index of the Dirac operator on the manifold Map(C_p,M) with its natural C_p-action. Here, Map(C_p,M) is the space of maps from the cyclic group of order p into a closed, connected, spin manifold, M. By applying the Atiyah-Singer index theorem we give a topological formula for the truncated Witten genus which is related to the formula for the Witten genus by truncation of the infinite products. We also show that the equivariant index of the Dirac operator on the projective space Map(C_p,ⁿ⁺¹) is closely related to the truncated Witten genus of ⁿ. The spaces Map(C_p,ⁿ⁺¹) define a filtration of the space Map(S¹,ⁿ⁺¹) which has been used to study equivariant objects on the smooth loop space of ⁿ.Acknowledgement This work was mainly done while the author was studying for a Ph.D. at Warwick University under the supervision of J. D. S. Jones. The author would like to thank John Jones for originally suggesting the problem and for his guidance whilst the author was at Warwick, to thank the EPSRC for funding his Ph.D., and to thank the referee for his detailed comments which helped greatly with the writing of this paper.     

A three-dimensional steady-state tumor system

The growth of tumors can be modeled as a free boundary problem involving partial differential equations. We consider one such model and compute steady-state solutions for this model. These solutions include radially symmetric solutions where the free boundary is a sphere and nonradially symmetric solutions. Linear and nonlinear stability for these solutions are determined numerically.     

Multivariate dynamic modeling for Bayesian forecasting of business revenue

Forecasting enterprise-wide revenue is critical to many companies and presents several challenges and opportunities for significant business impact. This case study is based on model developments to address these challenges for forecasting in a large-scale retail company. Focused on multivariate revenue forecasting across collections of supermarkets and product categories, hierarchical dynamic models are natural: these are able to couple revenue streams in an integrated forecasting model, while allowing conditional decoupling to enable relevant and sensitive analysis together with scalable computation. Structured models exploit multi-scale modeling to cascade information on price and promotion activities as predictors relevant across categories and groups of stores. With a context-relevant focus on forecasting revenue 12 weeks ahead, the study highlights product categories that benefit from multi-scale information, defines insights into when, how, and why multivariate models improve forecast accuracy, and shows how cross-category dependencies can relate to promotion decisions in one category impacting others. Bayesian modeling developments underlying the case study are accessible in custom code for interested readers.     

Biological evaluation of Trans-African highways

The Trans-African highway network is a unique concept of integrated development of transport corridors spanning all African countries and providing landlocked countries access to seaports. The planned road system is still maturing and just partially complete, thus giving us a chance to play with different scenarios of its growth and to consider potential alternative transport networks. We study the evolving transport network in the African continent with a groundbreaking technique of imitating growing transport networks with slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We represent the major urban areas of Africa with a source of nutrients, inoculate a piece of the slime mould in Cairo and allow the mould to span all urban areas with its network of protoplasmic tubes. We then compare the slime mould networks with existing and planned highway corridors. We found that slime mould provides a good approximation of the Trans-African highway network, with some roads of Eastern Africa delineated by P. polycephalum in a larger number of laboratory experiments. We demonstrate direct matches between protoplasmic tubes and Trans-Sahelian as well as Lagos-Mombasa corridors. Finally we analyse the bio-logic of transport network development in families of generalised Physarum graphs.     

On the isoperimetric inequality on a minimal surface

We derive an explicit formula for the isoperimetric defect of an arbitrary minimal surface ,in terms of a double integral over the surface of certain geometric quantities, together with a double boundary integral which always has the correct sign. As a by-product of these computations we show that the best known universal isoperimetric estimate, that for any minimal surface (due to L. Simon), may be improved to the universal estimate .Received: 21 June 2001, Accepted: 16 June 2002, Published online: 5 September 2002     

Response of infinite length rods and beams with periodically varying area

This paper develops a solution method for the longitudinal motion of a rod or the flexural motion of a beam of infinite length whose area varies periodically. The conventional rod or beam equation of motion is used with the area and moment of inertia expressed using analytical functions of the longitudinal (horizontal) spatial variable. The displacement field is written as a series expansion using a periodic form for the horizontal wavenumber. The area and moment of inertia expressions are each expanded into a Fourier series. These are inserted into the differential equations of motion and the resulting algebraic equations are orthogonalized to produce a matrix equation whose solution provides the unknown wave propagation coefficients, thus yielding the displacement of the system. An example problem of both a rod and beam are analyzed for three different geometrical shapes. The solutions to both problems are compared to results from finite element analysis for validation. Dispersion curves of the systems are shown graphically. Convergence of the series solutions is illustrated and discussed.     

A New Heuristic for a Single Machine Scheduling Problem with Set-up Times

This paper examines the problem of scheduling jobs on a single machine with set-up times. The jobs are divided into mutually exclusive classes and a set-up task is required when processing switches from a job of one class to a job of another class. The set-up times are assumed to be sequence independent. A number of necessary conditions for a schedule to minimize mean flow time have previously been stated, but do not uniquely define the optimal solution, and the problem is apparently NP-complete. We propose a new polynomial-time heuristic, based on these conditions, and compare its performance with some existing heuristics.     

Correction of finite element estimates for Sturm-Liouville eigenvalues

Summary It is shown that a simple asymptotic correction technique of Paine, de Hoog and Anderssen reduces the error in the estimate of thekth eigenvalue of a regular Sturm-Liouville problem obtained by the finite element method, with linear hat functions and mesh lengthh, fromO(k ⁴ h ²) toO(k h ²). The result still holds when the matrix elements are evaluated by Simpson's rule, but if the trapezoidal rule is used the error isO(k ² h ²). Numerical results demonstrate the usefulness of the correction even for low values ofk.