David Hull

Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications -     

A convenient strategy of dimerization by microwave heating and using 2,5-diketopiperazine as scaffold

A novel and convenient microwave-assisted dimerization of an active peptide compound using the DKPs as scaffold is described. The key reaction giving rise to the diketopiperazine scaffold is the intermolecular coupling. No epimerization was detected in the reactions used. Conventional and microwave heating of the reactions are compared. Synthesis by microwave irradiation gave the desired compounds in higher yields and in shorter reaction times than those obtained by conventional heating.     

Phase behavior at low temperature of poly(tetrafluoroethylene) by temperature-modulated calorimetry

Temperature modulated differential calorimetry (TMDSC) is used to examine the crystal-crystal transitions of poly(tetrafluoroethylene). This study gives new information about the dynamic thermal behavior of such transitions. The involvement of reversible and irreversible processes during the phenomenon is observed, which are related to the order-disorder changes occurring during the transition.This study adds a new example to the response of TMDSC during first order transitions.     

Sul calcolo delle variazioni

[Estratto da una lettera al Prof. G. Bagnera]     

Involutions for upper triangular matrix algebras

In this paper we describe completely the involutions of the first kind of the algebra UT_n(F) of n×n upper triangular matrices. Every such involution can be extended uniquely to an involution on the full matrix algebra. We describe the equivalence classes of involutions on the upper triangular matrices. There are two distinct classes for UT_n(F) when n is even and a single class in the odd case.Furthermore we consider the algebra UT₂(F) of the 2×2 upper triangular matrices over an infinite field F of characteristic different from 2. For every involution *, we describe the *-polynomial identities for this algebra. We exhibit bases of the corresponding ideals of identities with involution, and compute the Hilbert (or Poincaré) series and the codimension sequences of the respective relatively free algebras.Then we consider the *-polynomial identities for the algebra UT₃(F) over a field of characteristic zero. We describe a finite generating set of the ideal of *-identities for this algebra. These generators are quite a few, and their degrees are relatively large. It seems to us that the problem of describing the *-identities for the algebra UT_n(F) of the n×n upper triangular matrices may be much more complicated than in the case of ordinary polynomial identities.     

Heuristic Algorithms and Scatter Search for the Cardinality Constrained P||Cmax Problem

We consider the generalization of the classical P||C_max problem (assign n jobs to m identical parallel processors by minimizing the makespan) arising when the number of jobs that can be assigned to each processor cannot exceed a given integer k. The problem is strongly NP-hard for any fixed k > 2. We briefly survey lower and upper bounds from the literature. We introduce greedy heuristics, local search and a scatter search approach. The effectiveness of these approaches is evaluated through extensive computational comparison with a depth-first branch-and-bound algorithm that includes new lower bounds and dominance criteria.     

How to assess and report the performance of a stochastic algorithm on a benchmark problem: mean or best result on a number of runs?

Some authors claim that reporting the best result obtained by a stochastic algorithm in a number of runs is more meaningful than reporting some central statistic. In this short note, we analyze and refute the main argument brought in favor of this statement.