An optimal triangulation for second-order elliptic problems

Let Ω be a polygonal domain in $\text{R}{}^{\mathrm{n}}$, τ_h an associated triangulation and u_h the finite element solution of a well-posed second-order elliptic problem on (Ω, τ_h). Let M = {M_i}^{p + q}_{i = 1} be the set of nodes which defines the vertices of the triangulation τ_h: for each i,$\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{= {x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{l}}\text{¦1 ? l ?n}}$ in Rⁿ. The object of this paper is to provide a computational tool to approximate the best set of positions M? of the nodes and hence the best triangulation $\text{}\text{?}\text{gt}{}_{\mathrm{h}}$ which minimizes the solution error in the natural norm associated with the problem.The main result of this paper are theorems which provide explicit expressions for the partial derivatives of the associated energy functional with respect to the coordinates x_i^l, 1 ? l ? n, of each of the variable nodes M_i, i = 1,…, p.     

On n-Dimensional Sequences. I

Let R be a commutative ring and let n ≥ 1. We study Γ(s), the generating function and Ann(s), the ideal of characteristic polynomials of s, an n-dimensional sequence over R .We express f(X₁,…,X_n) · Γ(s)(X^-1₁,…,X^-1_n) as a partitioned sum. That is, we give (i) a 2ⁿ-fold "border" partition (ii) an explicit expression for the product as a 2ⁿ-fold sum; the support of each summand is contained in precisely one member of the partition. A key summand is βo(f, s), the "border polynomial" of f and s, which is divisible by X₁ … X_n.We say that s is eventually rectilinear if the elimination ideals Ann(s)∩R[X_i] contain an f_i (X_i) for 1 ≤ i ≤ n. In this case, we show that Ann(s) is the ideal quotient ($\text{∑}{}^{\mathrm{n}}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{=1(fi) : βo(f, s)/(X}{}_1\text{… X}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{)}$).When R and R[[X₁, X₂ ,…, X_n]] are factorial domains (e.g. R a principal ideal domain or F [X₁,…, X_n]), we compute the monic generator γ_i of Ann(s) ∩ R[X_i] from known f_i ϵ Ann(s) ∩ R[X_i] or from a finite number of 1-dimensional linear recurring sequences over R. Over a field F this gives an O($\text{∏}{}_{\mathrm{n}}{}^{\mathrm{i}}\text{=1 δγ}{}^3{}_{\mathrm{i}}$) algorithm to compute an F-basis for Ann(s).     

Matrix equations over rings

The main purpose of this work is to establish necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution of matrix equations whose coefficient matrices have elements belonging to the ring $\text{R=}\text{C}\text{[z}{}_1\text{,z}{}_2\text{,…z}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{]}$ of polynomials in n variables with complex coefficients and the ring $\text{R=}\text{R}\text{[z}{}_1\text{,z}{}_2\text{,…z}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{]}{}^{\mathrm{n}}$ of rational functions a(z₁,z₂,…z_n)b(z₁,z₂,…,z_n)^?1 with real coefficients and b(z₁,z₂,…,z_n)≠0 for all (z₁,z₂,…,z_n) in Rⁿ. Results obtained are useful in multidimensional systems theory and elsewhere.     

Crosscorrelation between linearly and nonlinearly distorted versions of a given signal

A given deterministic signal x(.) is distorted by passing it through a linear time-invariant filter and also by subjecting it to the action of an instantaneous nonlinearity. The resulting time crosscorrelation of the two distorted versions of the original signal is expressed by the function

$\text{R}{}_2\text{(s)?∫}{}_{\mathrm{?\infty }}{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}\text{?∫}{}_{\mathrm{?\infty }}{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}\text{g[x(t)]k(t?t′)x(t?s)dt dt′}$

, where x(.) is the given signal, k(.) is the nonnegative definite impulse response of the linear filter, and g(.) is the output-input characteristic of the zero-memory nonlinear device. The problem considered is that of determining conditions on the pair (x,g) such that R₂(s) ? R₂(0) for all s and any choice of nonnegative definite filter function k; the principal result is the formulation of a necessary and sufficient condition for R₂ to have a global maximum at the origin. In particular, the peak value occurs at the origin if and only if $\text{G}{}_{\mathrm{x}}{}^1\text{(ω)X(ω)}$ is real and nonnegative for all ω ? 0, where G_x(.) and X(.) are the Fourier transforms of g[x(.)] and x(.), respectively. An equivalent condition is that the correlation function

$\text{R}{}_2\text{(s)?∫}{}_{\mathrm{?\infty }}{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}\text{g[x(t)]x(t?s)dt}$

, previously studied by Richardson, be nonnegative definite.Several examples are given, and it is shown that, unlike the case for R₁(.), monotonicity of g(.) is not a sufficient condition for R₂(.) to have a global maximum at s = 0 independently of the choice of filter characteristic k. Certain extensions of these results are given for the case when x(.) is a Gaussian random input.     

Some remarks on a conjecture in parameter adaptive control

A.S. Morse has raised the following question: Do there exist differentiable functions

$\text{f:R}{}^2\text{→ R}\text{and}\text{g:R}{}^2\text{→ R}$

with the property that for every nonzero real number λ and every (x₀, y₀) ∈ $\text{R}$² the solution (x(t),y(t)) of

$\text{x}\text{?}\text{(t) = x(t) + λf(x(t),y(t))}$

,

$\text{y}\text{?}\text{(t) = g(x(t),y(t))}$

,

$\text{x(0) = x}{}_0\text{, y(0) = y}{}_0$

, is defined for all t ? 0 and satisfies

$\text{lim}\text{t → + ∞}$

and y(t) is bounded on [0,∞)? We prove that the answer is yes, and we give explicit real analytic functions f and g which work. However, we prove that if f and g are restricted to be rational functions, the answer is no.     

A distribution-free geometric upper bound for the probability of error of a minimum distance classifier

An upperbound to the probability of error per class in a multivariate pattern classification is derived. The bound, given by

$\text{P(E|class w}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{)≤}\text{N}\text{R}{}^2{}_{\mathrm{i}}$

is derived with minimal assumptions; specifically the mean vectors exist and are distinct and the covariance matrices exist and are non-singular. No other assumptions are made about the nature of the distributions of the classes. In equation (i) N is the number of features in the feature (vector) space and R_i is a measure of the “radial neighbourhood” of a class. An expression for R_i is developed. A comparison to the multivariate Gaussian hypothesis is presented.     

Kleene chain completeness and fixedpoint properties

Let L denote the nonscalar complexity in k(x₁,…, x_n). We prove $\text{L(?,??/?x}{}_1\text{,…,??/?x}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{)?3L(?)}$. Using this we determine the complexity of single power sums, single elementary symmetric functions, the resultant and the discriminant as root functions, up to order of magnitude. Also we linearly reduce matrix inversion to computing the determinant.     

Averaging shifted histograms

A method which consists in shifting different histograms of the same spectrum and then taking their average is presented in order to smooth the data and to increase the localization accuracy and separation of the peaks. The statistical properties of this method are investigated. The average of two histograms with shifted bin limits is studied. It is shown that for histograms with random bin limits, distributed according to

$\text{F}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{(x)=}\text{∫}\text{?∞}\text{x}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{(ξ, μ}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{, σ)}\text{d}\text{ξ}$

; where the standard deviation σ is very small compared to the difference of the means (μ_i+1 ? μ_i) for ll i the zero order approximation to the variance of this histogram is given by:

$\text{var}\text{∽}\text{(H)=}\text{∑}\text{i=0}\text{m}\text{(A}{}_{\mathrm{i+1}}\text{?a}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{)}{}^2\text{F}{}_{\mathrm{i+1}}\text{(x)(1?F}{}_{\mathrm{i+1}}\text{(x))}$

, where

$\text{a}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{=}\text{1}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i=1}}\text{?x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{∫}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i+1}}\text{g(ξ)}\text{d}\text{ξ}$

and g is an unknown function fitted by the histogram. Formula (1) gives also the relation:

$\text{v}\text{a}\text{?}\text{r}\text{(}\text{(H}{}_1\text{+ H}{}_2\text{)}\text{2}\text{) =}\text{1}\text{4}\text{(}\text{v}\text{a}\text{?}\text{r}\text{(H}{}_1\text{(x)) +}\text{v}\text{a}\text{?}\text{r}\text{(H}{}_2\text{(x))}$

, when H₁ and H₂ have stochastically independent bin limits.When the histogram H is considered as a spline function S of order one it is shown that for the minimization criterion with respect to the coefficient of the spline:

$\text{M}{}_1\text{=}\text{min}\text{∫}\text{x}{}_1\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{m+1}}\text{(g(x) ? S}{}_1\text{(x))}{}^2\text{d}\text{x}$

, the following result holds: $\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{a}}\text{?}{}^1{}_2\text{(M}{}_1\text{+ M}{}_2\text{)}$, where $\text{S}{}_{\mathrm{a}}\text{(x) =}{}^1{}_2\text{(S}{}_1\text{(x) + S}{}_2\text{(x))}$. If the number of shifted histograms tends to infinity, then

$\text{S}{}_{\mathrm{\infty }}\text{(x) = [Γ(x + h) + Γ(x ? h) ? 2Γ(x)]/h}{}^2$

, where $\text{Γ(x) =}\text{∫}\text{?∞}\text{x}\text{∫}\text{?∞}\text{η}\text{g(ξ)}\text{d}\text{ξ}\text{d}\text{η}$, and h is a constant bin size. Then

$\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{\infty }}\text{≈}\text{h}{}^4\text{144}\text{∫}\text{x}{}_1\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{m+1}}\text{g″}{}^2\text{(x)}\text{D}\text{x}$

. Extensions to two-dimensional histograms and to higher order (empirical distributions) are presented.     

The relation between information theory and the differential geometry approach to statistics

?encov has shown that the Riemannian metric on the probability simplex ∑x_i = 1 defined by $\text{(ds)}{}^2\text{=}\text{∑(dx}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{)}{}^2\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}$ has an invariance property under certain probabilistically natural mappings. No other Riemannian metric has the same property. The geometry associated with this metric is shown to lead almost automatically to measures of divergence between probability distributions which are associated with Kullback, Bhattacharyya, and Matusita. Certain vector fields are associated in a natural way with random variables. The integral curves of these vector fields yield the maximum entropy or minimum divergence estimates of probabilities. Some other consequences of this geometric view are also explored.     

Mathematical foundations of Bézier's technique

Bezier's method is one of the most famous in computational geometry. In his book Numerical control Bezier gives excellent expositions of the mathematical foundations of this method. In this paper a new expression of the functions {f_n,i(u)}

$\text{f}{}_{\mathrm{n,i}}\text{(u)=1?}\text{Σ}\text{p=0}\text{i?1}\text{C}{}^{\mathrm{p}}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{u}{}^{\mathrm{p}}\text{(1?u)}{}^{\mathrm{n?p}}\text{(i=1,2,…,n)}$

is obtained.Using this formula, we have not only derived some properties of the functions {f_n,i(u)} (for instance $\text{f}{}_{\mathrm{n,n}}\text{(u) < f}{}_{\mathrm{n,n?1}}\text{(u)<...<f}{}_{\mathrm{n,1}}\text{(u)}\text{u}\text{? [0, 1]}$ and functions {f_n,i(u)} increase strictly at [0, 1] etc) but also simplified systematically all the mathematical discussions about Bezier's method.Finally we have proved the plotting theorem completely by matrix calculation.     

Three symmetric solutions of lidstone boundary value problems for difference and partial difference equations

We consider the boundary value problem $\text{δ}{}^{\mathrm{2m}}\text{y(k-m)=f(y(k),δ}{}^2\text{y(k-1),…,δ}{}^{\mathrm{2i}}\text{y(k-1),…,δ}{}^{\mathrm{2(m-1)}}\text{y(k-(m-1)))}\text{kϵ{a+1,…,b+1},}\text{δ}{}^{\mathrm{2i}}\text{y(a+1-m)=δ}{}^{\mathrm{2i}}\text{y(b+1+m-2i)=0,}\text{0≤i≤m-1,}$ where m ≥ 1 and (−1)^m f R^m → [0, ∞) is continuous. By using Amann and Leggett-Williams' fixed-point theorems, we develop growth conditions on f so that the boundary value problem has triple positive symmetric solutions. The results obtained are then applied in the investigation of radial solutions for certain partial difference equation subject to Lidstone type conditions.     

The decentralized stabilization and control of a class of unknown non-linear time-varying systems

The following problem is considered in this paper. Suppose a system S consists of a set of arbitrary interconnected subsystems S_i, i = 1, 2, …, Ω; is it possible to stabilize and satisfactorily control the whole system S by using only local controllers about the individual subsystems without a knowledge of the manner of the actual interconnections of the whole system? Sufficient conditions are obtained for such a result to hold true; in particular it is shown that a system S consisting of a number of subsystems S_i connected in an arbitrary way between themselves with finite gains: $\text{S}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{:}\text{x}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{=}\text{A}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{(}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{, t)}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{+}\text{b}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{(}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{, t)u}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{, y}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{=}\text{c}\text{′}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{(}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{, t)}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i}}$ where A_i and b_i have a particular structure, may be satisfactorily controlled by applying only local controllers C_i about the individual subsystems: C_i: u_i = K′_i(?)x_i where K_i is a constant gain matrix with the scalar ? appearing as a parameter, provided ? is large enough.     

Improved lower bounds on the number of multiplications/divisions which are necessary to evaluate polynomials

We improve some lower bounds which have been obtained by Strassen and Lipton. In particular there exist polynomials of degree n with 0–1 coefficients that cannot be evaluated with less than $\text{n}\text{/(4}\text{log}\text{n)}$ nonscalar multiplications/divisions. The evaluation of p(x) $\text{∑}\text{δ=0}\text{n}\text{e}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>2\pi i</mtext><mtext>2\delta </mtext>}}\text{x}{}^{\mathrm{\delta }}$ requires at least $\text{n}\text{(12}\text{log}\text{n)}$ multiplications/divisions and at least $\text{n/(8}\text{log}\text{n)}$ nonscalar multiplications/divisions. We specify polynomials with algebraic coefficients that require $\text{1}\text{2}\text{n}$ multiplications/divisions.     

computer aided intuition in abstract algebra

Two examples are given in which the computer was used to supplement intuition in abstract algebra. In the first example, the computer was used to search Cayley tables of 4 element groupoids to find those which are 5-associative but not 4-associative. (n-associative means that the product of any n elements is independent of the way the factors are grouped by parentheses.) The computer generated examples suggested the existence of n element groupoids which are (2^n?2+1)-associative but not (2^n-2)-associative, for each integer n≧4.In the second example, the computer counted the numbers g₂(m) of invertible 2×2 matrices with entries chosen from the ring Z_mof integers, for m = 2, 3, 4,…, 18. The insight gained from these results led to a proof that there are

invertible n×n matrices over Z_m.Some applications to graduate and undergraduate instruction are indicated.     

Normal forms for nonautonomous difference equations

We extend Henry Poincaré's normal form theory for autonomous difference equations χ_{k + 1} = f(χ_k) to nonautonomous difference equations χ_{k + 1} = f_k(χ_k). Poincaré's nonresonance condition $\text{α}{}_{\mathrm{j}}\text{-П}{}^{\mathrm{n}}{}_{\mathrm{i=1}}\text{=1α}{}^{\mathrm{qi}}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{≠0}$ for eigenvalues is generalized to the new nonresonance condition λ_j∪$\text{α}{}_{\mathrm{j}}\text{⊔П}{}^{\mathrm{n}}{}_{\mathrm{i=1}}\text{α}{}^{\mathrm{qi}}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{≠0}$ for spectral intervals.     

Lower bounds for polynomials with algebraic coefficients

We give a method, based on algebraic geometry, to show lower bounds for the complexity of polynomials with algebraic coefficients. Typical examples are polynomials with coefficients which are roots of unity, such as

$\text{Σ}\text{j=1}\text{d}\text{e}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>2\pi i</mtext><mtext>i</mtext>}}\text{X}{}^{\mathrm{i}}$

and

$\text{Σ}\text{j=i}\text{d}\text{e}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>2\pi i</mtext><mtext>pi</mtext>}}\text{X}{}^{\mathrm{j}}$

where p_j is the jth prime number.We apply the method also to systems of linear equations.