An Application of Branch and Cut to Open Pit Mine Scheduling

The economic viability of the modern day mine is highly dependent upon careful planning and management. Declining trends in average ore grades, increasing mining costs and environmental considerations will ensure that this situation will remain in the foreseeable future. The operation and management of a large open pit mine having a life of several years is an enormous and complex task. Though a number of optimization techniques have been successfully applied to resolve some important problems, the problem of determining an optimal production schedule over the life of the deposit is still very much unresolved. In this paper we will critically examine the techniques that are being used in the mining industry for production scheduling indicating their limitations. In addition, we present a mixed integer linear programming model for the scheduling problems along with a Branch and Cut solution strategy. Computational results for practical sized problems are discussed.     

Incomplete data problems in X-ray computerized tomography

Summary In the present paper we study truncated projections for the fanbeam geometry in computerized tomography. First we derive consistency conditions for the divergent beam transform. Then we study a singular value decomposition for the case where only the interior rays in the fan are provided, as for example in region-of-interest tomography. We show that the high angular frequency components of the searched-for densities are well determined and we present reconstructions from real data where the missing information is approximated based on the singular value decomposition.The work of the authors was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under grant Lo 310/2-4     

Braids on surfaces and finite type invariants

We prove that there is no functorial universal finite type invariant for braids in Σ×I if the genus of Σ is positive. To cite this article: P. Bellingeri, L. Funar, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 338 (2004).     

Modules of piecewise polynomials and their freeness

Partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-9004123 and ARO through MSI Cornell (DAAG 29-85-C-0018)     

Existence globale pour l'équation de Smoluchowski continue non homogène et comportement asymptotique des solutions

We prove global existence of solutions to the continuous nonhomogeneous Smoluchowski equation for coagulation rates satisfying a more general structure condition than the Galkin–Tupchiev monotony hypothesis considered in (Ph. Laurençot, S. Mischler, Arch. Rational Mech. Anal. 162 (1) (2002) 45–99). The Smoluchowski coagulation rate fulfils this condition as well as some rates which vanish on the diagonal. Under the condition of positivity of the coagulation rate outside of the diagonal we prove that solutions tend to 0 in the large time asymptotic. These results depend on a new estimate from below for the dissipation rate of the L^p-norm, p>1. To cite this article: S. Mischler, M. Rodriguez Ricard, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 336 (2003).     

An improved algorithm for computing topological entropy

A new algorithm is presented for computing the topological entropy of a unimodal map of the interval. The accuracy of the algorithm is discussed and some graphs of the topological entropy which are obtained using the algorithm are displayed.     

Sur les valeurs propres d'un oscillateur harmonique perturbé

Sans résumé Dedicated to Professor Shmuel Agmon     

Validation of a solid-phase extraction high-performance liquid chromatographic assay for doxazosin.

The determination of doxazosin by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection is described. Propanolol was used as the internal standard. Plasma samples were treated with methanol to precipitate the proteins. Doxazosin was isolated with C18 reversed-phase extraction columns. The determination limit is 1 ng/ml of plasma, while the extraction columns can be reused frequently. The method is applied to clinical trial samples.     

The Ends of Manifolds with Bounded Geometry, Linear Growth and Finite Filling Area

We prove that simply connected open manifolds of bounded geometry, linear growth and sublinear filling growth (e.g. finite filling area) are simply connected at infinity.