Three-dimensional beta shapes

The Voronoi diagram of a point set has been extensively used in various disciplines ever since it was first proposed. Its application realms have been even further extended to estimate the shape of point clouds when Edelsbrunner and Mücke introduced the concept of α-shape based on the Delaunay triangulation of a point set.In this paper, we present the theory of β-shape for a set of three-dimensional spheres as the generalization of the well-known α-shape for a set of points. The proposed β-shape fully accounts for the size differences among spheres and therefore it is more appropriate for the efficient and correct solution for applications in biological systems such as proteins.Once the Voronoi diagram of spheres is given, the corresponding β-shape can be efficiently constructed and various geometric computations on the sphere complex can be efficiently and correctly performed. It turns out that many important problems in biological systems such as proteins can be easily solved via the Voronoi diagram of atoms in proteins and β-shapes transformed from the Voronoi diagram.     

Loop subdivision surfaces interpolating -spline curves

This paper presents a novel method for defining a Loop subdivision surface interpolating a set of popularly-used cubic B-spline curves. Although any curve on a Loop surface corresponding to a regular edge path is usually a piecewise quartic polynomial curve, it is found that the curve can be reduced to a single cubic B-spline curve under certain constraints of the local control vertices. Given a set of cubic B-spline curves, it is therefore possible to define a Loop surface interpolating the input curves by enforcing the interpolation constraints. In order to produce a surface of local or global fair effect, an energy-based optimization scheme is used to update the control vertices of the Loop surface subjecting to curve interpolation constraints, and the resulting surface will exactly interpolate the given curves. In addition to curve interpolation, other linear constraints can also be conveniently incorporated. Because both Loop subdivision surfaces and cubic B-spline curves are popularly used in engineering applications, the curve interpolation method proposed in this paper offers an attractive and essential modeling tool for computer-aided design.     

Constrained curve drawing using trigonometric splines having shape parameters

The problem of drawing a smooth obstacle avoiding curve has attracted the attention of many people working in the area of CAD/CAM and its applications. In the present paper we propose a method of constrained curve drawing using certain C¹-quadratic trigonometric splines having shape parameters, which have been recently introduced in [Han X. Quadratic trigonometric polynomial curves with a shape parameter. Computer Aided Geometric Design 2002;19:503–12]. Besides this, we have also presented a simpler approach for studying the approximation properties of the trigonometric spline curves.     

Stability, robust stabilization and control of singular-impulsive systems via switching control

In this paper, stability, robust stabilization and H_∞ control of singular-impulsive systems are studied. Some new fundamental properties are derived for switched singular systems subject to impulse effects. Applying the Lyapunov function theory, several sufficient conditions are established for exponential stability, robust stabilization and H_∞ control of the corresponding singular-impulsive closed-loop systems. Some numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control and stabilization methods.     

Existence of positive solutions for th-order singular superlinear boundary value problems

This paper investigates the existence of positive solutions for 2nth-order (n>1) singular superlinear boundary value problems. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of C²ⁿ⁻²[0,1] as well as C²ⁿ⁻¹[0,1] positive solutions is given by constructing a special cone and with the e-Norm.     

Assembling curvature continuous surfaces from triangular patches

We assemble triangular patches of total degree at most eight to form a curvature continuous surface. The construction illustrates how separation of local shape from representation and formal continuity yields an effective construction paradigm in partly underconstrained scenarios. The approach localizes the technical challenges and applies the spline approach, i.e. keeping the degree fixed but increasing the number of pieces, to deal with increased complexity when many patches join at a central point.     

Existence and uniqueness theorems for fourth-order singular boundary value problems

By constructing a special cone and using cone compression and expansion fixed point theorem, the existence and uniqueness are established for the following singular fourth-order boundary value problems:

where f(t,x,y) may be singular at t=0,1; x=0 and y=0.     

Finding an Euclidean anti--centrum location of a set of points

An obnoxious facility is to be located inside a polygonal region of the plane, maximizing the sum of the k smallest weighted Euclidean distances to n given points, each protected by some polygonal forbidden region. For the unweighted case and k fixed an O(n²logn) time algorithm is presented. For the weighted case a thorough study of the relevant structure of the multiplicatively weighted order-k-Voronoi diagram leads to the design of an O(kn³+n³logn) time algorithm for finding an optimal solution to the anti-t-centrum problem for every t=1,…,k, simultaneously.     

Dual periodicity in -norm minimisation problems

The topic of this paper is the discrete-time l₁-norm minimisation problem with convolution constraints. We find primal initial conditions for which the dual optimal solution is periodic. Periodicity of the dual optimal solution implies satisfaction of a simple linear recurrence relation by the primal optimal solution.     

Suboptimal robust synthesis for MIMO plant under coprime factor perturbations

Suboptimal robust synthesis for MIMO nominal system under coprime factor perturbations is considered in classical and non-classical statements. In the classical statement, weights of perturbations and upper bound on magnitude bounded exogenous disturbance are assumed to be known to controller designer. Suboptimal synthesis within ε tolerance is reduced to the solution of log₂(1/ε) standard mixed sensitivity problems of ℓ₁ optimization. In the non-classical statement, the upper bounds on perturbations and exogenous disturbance are to be estimated from measurement data and suboptimal synthesis is reduced to the solution of 1/ε mixed sensitivity problems.     

A vertex-first parametric algorithm for polyhedron blending

This paper enhances the conventional parametric algorithms for polyhedron blending, by strategically inverting the edges-first approach to vertex-first, so that matching the vertex blending surface (using a triangular or tensor product Bézier surface, or an S-patch) with the edge blending surfaces (generated by Hartmann method) becomes essentially easier. Based on a study of cross boundary derivatives (those of S-patches are deduced herein), G^g-continuity between all the above surfaces and the primary planar faces is achieved by a novel trick as a first step: assigning the vertex, some edge points and some face points to be the proper control points. This still leaves enough free parameters usable for changing the blending configuration. The new algorithm is illustrated with two practical examples involving miscellaneous vertices up to 6-edge convex–concave.     

Adaptive patch-based mesh fitting for reverse engineering

In this paper,  we propose a novel adaptive mesh fitting algorithm that fits a triangular model with G¹ smoothly stitching bi-quintic Bézier patches. Our algorithm first segments the input mesh into a set of quadrilateral patches, whose boundaries form a quadrangle mesh. For each boundary of each quadrilateral patch, we construct a normal curve and a boundary-fitting curve, which fit the normal and position of its boundary vertices respectively. By interpolating the normal and boundary-fitting curves of each quadrilateral patch with a Bézier patch, an initial G¹ smoothly stitching Bézier patches is generated. We perform this patch-based fitting scheme in an adaptive fashion by recursively subdividing the underlying quadrilateral into four sub-patches. The experimental results show that our algorithm achieves precision-ensured Bézier patches with G¹ continuity and meets the requirements of reverse engineering.     

Minimality considerations for graph energy over a class of graphs

Let G be a graph on n vertices, and let CHP(G;λ) be the characteristic polynomial of its adjacency matrix A(G). All n roots of CHP(G;λ), denoted by , are called to be its eigenvalues. The energy E(G) of a graph G, is the sum of absolute values of all eigenvalues, namely, . Let be the set of n-vertex unicyclic graphs, the graphs with n vertices and n edges. A fully loaded unicyclic graph is a unicyclic graph taken from with the property that there exists no vertex with degree less than 3 in its unique cycle. Let be the set of fully loaded unicyclic graphs. In this article, the graphs in with minimal and second-minimal energies are uniquely determined, respectively.     

An involute spiral that matches Hermite data in the plane

A construction is given for a planar rational Pythagorean hodograph spiral, which interpolates any two-point G² Hermite data that a spiral can match. When the curvature at one of the points is zero, the construction gives the unique interpolant that is an involute of a rational Pythagorean hodograph curve of the form cubic over linear. Otherwise, the spiral comprises an involute of a Tschirnhausen cubic together with at most two circular arcs. The construction is by explicit formulas in the first case, and requires the solution of a quadratic equation in the second case.     

On the decoding of binary cyclic codes with the Newton identities

We revisit in this paper the concept of decoding binary cyclic codes with Gröbner bases. These ideas were first introduced by Cooper, then Chen, Reed, Helleseth and Truong, and eventually by Orsini and Sala. We discuss here another way of putting the decoding problem into equations: the Newton identities. Although these identities have been extensively used for decoding, the work was done manually, to provide formulas for the coefficients of the locator polynomial. This was achieved by Reed, Chen, Truong and others in a long series of papers, for decoding quadratic residue codes, on a case-by-case basis. It is tempting to automate these computations, using elimination theory and Gröbner bases.Thus, we study in this paper the properties of the system defined by the Newton identities, for decoding binary cyclic codes. This is done in two steps, first we prove some facts about the variety associated with this system, then we prove that the ideal itself contains relevant equations for decoding, which lead to formulas.Then we consider the so-called online Gröbner basis decoding, where the work of computing a Gröbner basis is done for each received word. It is much more efficient for practical purposes than preprocessing and substituting into the formulas. Finally, we conclude with some computational results, for codes of interesting length (about one hundred).     

-admissibility of the right-shift semigroup on

It is shown that the right-shift semigroup on does not satisfy the weighted Weiss conjecture for α(0,1). In other words, α-admissibility of scalar valued observation operators cannot always be characterised by a simple resolvent growth condition. This result is in contrast to the unweighted case, where 0-admissibility can be characterised by a simple growth bound. The result is proved by providing a link between discrete and continuous α-admissibility and then translating a counterexample for the unilateral shift on to continuous time systems.     

The -basis and implicitization of a rational parametric surface

The concept of a μ-basis was introduced in the case of parametrized curves in 1998 and generalized to the case of rational ruled surfaces in 2001. The μ-basis can be used to recover the parametric equation as well as to derive the implicit equation of a rational curve or surface. Furthermore, it can be used for surface reparametrization and computation of singular points. In this paper, we generalize the notion of a μ-basis to an arbitrary rational parametric surface. We show that: (1) the μ-basis of a rational surface always exists, the geometric significance of which is that any rational surface can be expressed as the intersection of three moving planes without extraneous factors; (2) the μ-basis is in fact a basis of the moving plane module of the rational surface; and (3) the μ-basis is a basis of the corresponding moving surface ideal of the rational surface when the base points are local complete intersections. As a by-product, a new algorithm is presented for computing the implicit equation of a rational surface from the μ-basis. Examples provide evidence that the new algorithm is superior than the traditional algorithm based on direct computation of a Gröbner basis. Problems for further research are also discussed.     

Input–output approach to stability and -gain analysis of systems with time-varying delays

Stability and L₂ (l₂)-gain of linear (continuous-time and discrete-time) systems with uncertain bounded time-varying delays are analyzed under the assumption that the nominal delay values are not equal to zero. The delay derivatives (in the continuous-time) are not assumed to be less than q<1. An input–output approach is applied by introducing a new input–output model, which leads to effective frequency domain and time domain criteria. The new method significantly improves the existing results for delays with derivatives not greater than 1, which were treated in the past as fast-varying delays (without any constraints on the delay derivatives). New bounded real lemmas (BRLs) are derived for systems with state and objective vector delays and norm-bounded uncertainties. Numerical examples illustrate the efficiency of the new method.     

A class of iterative methods for solving nonsymmetric algebraic Riccati equations arising in transport theory

In this paper, we consider the nonsymmetric algebraic Riccati equation arising in transport theory. An important feature of this equation is that its minimal positive solution can be obtained via computing the minimal positive solution of a vector equation. We propose a class of iterative methods to solve the vector equation. The convergence analysis shows that the sequence of vectors generated by iterative methods with two kinds of specific iterative matrices is monotonically increasing and converges to the minimal positive solution of the vector equation. Numerical experiments show that the new methods outperform the modified simple iterative method and Newton’s method.     

Algorithmic proofs of two theorems of Stafford

Two classical results of Stafford say that every (left) ideal of the n-th Weyl algebra A_n can be generated by two elements, and every holonomic A_n-module is cyclic, i.e. generated by one element. We modify Stafford’s original proofs to make the algorithmic computation of these generators possible.