Long-term optimal operation of series parallel reservoirs for critical period with specified monthly generation and average monthly storage

We present in this paper an efficient approach for solving the problem of planning the long-term (multiyear) operation of a multireservoir hydroelectric power system for the critical period with a monthly variable load. This load is equal to a certain percentage of the total generation at the end of the year, subject to satisfying a number of constraints on the hydrosystem, using the minimum norm formulation.The proposed method is efficient in computing time and in calculating the total expected benefits from the system during the critical period. Numerical results are reported for a real system in operation consisting of two rivers. Each river has two series reservoirs.This work was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant No. A4146.     

Propagation of mesons in asymmetric nuclear matter in a density-dependent coupling model

We study the propagation of the light mesons σ,ω,ρ, and a₀(980) in dense hadronic matter in an extended derivative scalar coupling model. Within the scheme proposed it is possible to unambiguously define effective density-dependent couplings at the Lagrangian level. We first apply the model to study asymmetric nuclear matter with fixed isospin asymmetry, and then we pay particular attention to hypermatter in β-equilibrium. The equation of state and the potential contribution to the symmetry coefficient arising from the mean-field approximation are investigated. Received: 16 October 2001 / Accepted: 10 January 2002     

Controlling global stochasticity of Hamiltonian systems by nonlinear perturbation

A method of controlling global stochasticity in Hamiltonian systems by applying nonlinear perturbation is proposed. With the well-known standard map we demonstrate that this control method can convert global stochasticity into regular motion in a wide chaotic region for arbitrary initial condition, in which the control signal remains very weak after a few kicks. The system in which chaos has been controlled approximates to the original Hamiltonian system, and this approach appears robust against small external noise. The mechanism underlying this high control efficiency is intuitively explained. Received 15 January 2002 Published online 6 June 2002     

Tunneling and EPR linewidths due to dislocations in Mn acetate

We compute the width and shape of the EPR and tunneling resonances due to dislocations in Mn₁₂ acetate crystals. Uncorrelated dislocations produce the Gaussian shape of resonances while dislocations bound in pairs produce the Lorentzian shape. We stress that the uniaxial spin Hamiltonian together with crystal defects can explain the totality of experimental data on Mn₁₂. Received 2 August 2001 / Received in final form 15 March 2002 Published online 17 September 2002     

Constructions of External Difference Families and Disjoint Difference Families

External difference families (EDFs) are a type of new combinatorial designs originated from cryptography. In this paper, some earlier ideas of recursive and cyclotomic constructions of combinatorial designs are extended, and a number of classes of EDFs and disjoint difference families are presented. A link between a subclass of EDFs and a special type of (almost) difference sets is set up.     

Global Optimization of Stochastic Black-Box Systems via Sequential Kriging Meta-Models

This paper proposes a new method that extends the efficient global optimization to address stochastic black-box systems. The method is based on a kriging meta-model that provides a global prediction of the objective values and a measure of prediction uncertainty at every point. The criterion for the infill sample selection is an augmented expected improvement function with desirable properties for stochastic responses. The method is empirically compared with the revised simplex search, the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation, and the DIRECT methods using six test problems from the literature. An application case study on an inventory system is also documented. The results suggest that the proposed method has excellent consistency and efficiency in finding global optimal solutions, and is particularly useful for expensive systems.     

Some results on quasipolyhedral convexity

The objective of this paper is to analyze under what well-known operations the class of quasipolyhedral convex functions, which can be regarded as an extension of that of polyhedral convex functions, is closed. The operations that will be considered are those that preserve polyhedral convexity, such that the image and the inverse image under linear transformations, right scalar multiplication (including the case where λ=0⁺) and pointwise addition.      

Reconfiguration Aspects and a Reconfigurable Outer Block Interleaver for 3G Applications

Reconfiguration concept represents reconfigurable functionalities of the radio interface for mobile radio systems. Particularly for the physical layer, some possible reconfigurable architectures can be identified. We focus on outer interleaving for turbo codes, which can improve their performance in flat Rayleigh fading environment. The larger the number of columns in the outer interleaver, the better is the performance, but with the penalty of more complexity and delay. Furthermore, an incorrect choice of the number of columns can increase the bit and frame error rates. Therefore, it would be advantageous to reconfigure the outer interleaver in different operating environments with the optimum number of columns. Using two different data frame lengths, in this contribution simulation results are presented for the four possible outer block interleaver configurations specified for the 3GPP mobile standard in the case of flat Rayleigh fading channel. It is shown that different operating environments require an optimum number of columns in terms of bit error rate and frame error rate performance. Finally, frame fade duration is considered and the effect of the product of the Doppler frequency with the frame duration on the performance for the four different 3GPP outer block interleaver configurations is discussed. Costas Chaikalis was born in Athens, Greece, on March 7, 1973. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering in 1995 from Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, Greece. He also received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK in 1999 and 2003, respectively. During his doctoral studies he worked as a Research Assistant for Mobile Virtual Center of Excellence (Mobile VCE), Terminals Group, UK. Since 2003, he is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, Greece. His research interests are in all areas of mobile communications but especially in forward error correction coding, reconfigurable (software radio) architectures, cross layer architectures and DSP applications.     

Axisymmetric Collision Problem for Two Identical Elastic Solids of Revolution

A direct central collision of two identical bodies of revolution is studied. A nonstationary mixed boundary-value problem with an unknown moving boundary is formulated. Its solution is represented by a series in term of Bessel functions. An infinite system of Volterra equations of the second kind for the unknown expansion coefficients is derived by satisfying the boundary conditions. The basic characteristics of the collision process are determined depending on the curvature of the frontal surface of the bodies