Computing Aviation Sparing Policies: Solving a Large Nonlinear Integer Program

Deployed US Navy aircraft carriers must stock a large number of spare parts to support the various types of aircraft embarked on the ship. The sparing policy determines the spares that will be stocked on the ship to keep the embarked aircraft ready to fly. Given a fleet of ten or more aircraft carriers and a cost of approximately 50 million dollars per carrier plus the cost of spares maintained in warehouses in the United States, the sparing problem constitutes a significant portion of the Navy’s resources. The objective of this work is to find a minimum-cost sparing policy that meets the readiness requirements of the embarked aircraft. This is a very large, nonlinear, integer optimization problem. The cost function is piecewise linear and convex while the constraint mapping is highly nonlinear. The distinguishing characteristics of this problem from an optimization viewpoint are that a large number of decision variables are required to be integer and that the nonlinear constraint functions are essentially “black box” functions; that is, they are very difficult (and expensive) to evaluate and their derivatives are not available. Moreover, they are not convex. Integer programming problems with a large number of variables are difficult to solve in general and most successful approaches to solving nonlinear integer problems have involved linear approximation and relaxation techniques that, because of the complexity of the constraint functions, are inappropriate for attacking this problem. We instead employ a pattern search method to each iteration of an interior point-type algorithm to solve the relaxed version of the problem. From the solution found by the pattern search on each interior point iteration, we begin another pattern search on the integer lattice to find a good integer solution. The best integer solution found across all interations is returned as the optimal solution. The pattern searches are distributed across a local area network of non-dedicated, heterogeneous computers in an office environment, thus, drastically reducing the time required to find the solution.     

具有性质(G'_k)的Wakamatsu倾斜模

本文引进了具有性质(G'k)的Wakamatsu倾斜模的概念,并用同调有限子范畴的性质对其进行了刻画．     

三维守恒律有限元方法逼近光滑解的误差估计

我们对一个三维守恒律的显式有限元方法证明了H^1范数的二阶误差估计。     

Uniform convergence of Galerkin‐multigrid methods for nonconforming finite elements for second‐order problems with less than full elliptic regularity

In this article we prove uniform convergence estimates for the recently developed Galerkin‐multigrid methods for nonconforming finite elements for second‐order problems with less than full elliptic regularity. These multigrid methods are defined in terms of the “Galerkin approach,” where quadratic forms over coarse grids are constructed using the quadratic form on the finest grid and iterated coarse‐to‐fine intergrid transfer operators. Previously, uniform estimates were obtained for problems with full elliptic regularity, whereas these estimates are derived with less than full elliptic regularity here. Applications to the nonconforming P₁, rotated Q₁, and Wilson finite elements are analyzed. The result applies to the mixed method based on finite elements that are equivalent to these nonconforming elements. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 203–217, 2002; DOI 10.1002/num.10004     

时滞差分系统基于两种度量的稳定性分析

本文建立了一些关于时滞差分系统（h0,h）稳定性（一致稳定性，渐近稳定性，一致渐近稳定性）的判定准则。在所得到的定理中，去除了△V为常负的限制，特别地，△V甚至可以恒为正，从而大大改进了已有结果，并更加便于应用。     

无界区域抛物方程自然边界元方法

本文应用自然边界元方法求解无界区域抛物型初边值问题。首先将控制方程对时间进行离散化,得到关于时间步长离散化的椭圆型问题。通过Fourier展开,导出相应问题的自然积分方程和Poisson积分公式。研究了自然积分算子的性质,并讨论了自然积分方程的数值解法,最后给出数值例子。从而解决了抛物型问题的自然边界归化和自然边界元方法。     

标的股价服从混合过程的期权定价公式及有限元算法

本文将马尔科夫跳跃过程叠加于 Ito过程 ,形成混合过程 ,并用该过程来刻画股价走势情况。而后在标的股价服从混合过程的基础上 ,推导出了欧式看涨期权的定价公式 ,并对美式看跌期权定价给出了有限元算法。     

Some effective methods for unconstrained optimization based on the solution of systems of ordinary differential equations

In this paper, we review briefly some methods for minimizing a functionF(x), which proceed by follwoing the solution curve of a system of ordinary differential equations. Such methods have often been thought to be unacceptably expensive; but we show, by means of extensive numerical tests, using a variety of algorithms, that the ODE approach can in fact be implemented in such a way as to be more than competitive with currently available conventional techniques.This work was supported by a SERC research studentship for the first author. Both authors are indebted to Dr. J. J. McKeown and Dr. K. D. Patel of SCICON Ltd, the collaborating establishment, for their advice and encouragement.     

New initial-value method for singularly perturbed boundary-value problems

An initial-value method is given for second-order singularly perturbed boundary-value problems with a boundary layer at one endpoint. The idea is to replace the original two-point boundary value problem by two suitable initial-value problems. The method is very easy to use and to implement. Nontrivial text problems are used to show the feasibility of the given method, its versatility, and its performance in solving linear and nonlinear singularly perturbed problems.This work was supported in part by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Contract No. 86.02108.01, and in part by the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione.     

Numerical differentiation from a viewpoint of regularization theory

In this paper, we discuss the classical ill-posed problem of numerical differentiation, assuming that the smoothness of the function to be differentiated is unknown. Using recent results on adaptive regularization of general ill-posed problems, we propose new rules for the choice of the stepsize in the finite-difference methods, and for the regularization parameter choice in numerical differentiation regularized by the iterated Tikhonov method. These methods are shown to be effective for the differentiation of noisy functions, and the order-optimal convergence results for them are proved.