Evaluation of the effectiveness of the interval computation method to simulate the dynamic behavior of subdefinite system: application on an active suspension system

International audienceA new design approach based on methods by intervals adapted to the integration of the simulation step at the earliest stage of preliminary design for dynamic systems is proposed in this study. The main idea consists on using the interval computation method to make a simulation by intervals in order to minimize the number of simulations which allow obtaining a set of solutions instead of a single one. These intervals represent the domains of possible values for the design parameters of the subdefinite system. So the parameterized model of the system is solved by interval. This avoids launching n simulations with n values for each design parameter. The proposed method is evaluated by several tests on a scalable numerical example. It has been applied to solve parameterized differential equations of a Macpher-son suspension system and to study its dynamic behavior in its passive and active form. The dynamic model of the active suspension is nonlinear but linearisable. It is transformed into a parameterized state equation by intervals. The solution to this state equation is given in the form of a matrix exponential. Three digital implementations of exponential have been tested to obtain convergent results. Simulations results are presented and discussed

Frontal Solutions: an Information Technology Transfer to Abstract Mathematics

The paper introduces a method for dependencies discovery during human-machine interaction. It is based on an analysis of numerical data sets in knowledge-poor environments. The driven procedures are independent and they interact on a competitive principle. The research focuses on seven of them. The application is in Number Theory

Certainty Closure: Reliable Constraint Reasoning with Incomplete or Erroneous Data

Constraint Programming (CP) has proved an effective paradigm to model and solve difficult combinatorial satisfaction and optimisation problems from disparate domains. Many such problems arising from the commercial world are permeated by data uncertainty. Existing CP approaches that accommodate uncertainty are less suited to uncertainty arising due to incomplete and erroneous data, because they do not build reliable models and solutions guaranteed to address the user's genuine problem as she perceives it. Other fields such as reliable computation offer combinations of models and associated methods to handle these types of uncertain data, but lack an expressive framework characterising the resolution methodology independently of the model. We present a unifying framework that extends the CP formalism in both model and solutions, to tackle ill-defined combinatorial problems with incomplete or erroneous data. The certainty closure framework brings together modelling and solving methodologies from different fields into the CP paradigm to provide reliable and efficient approches for uncertain constraint problems. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework on a case study in network diagnosis. We define resolution forms that give generic templates, and their associated operational semantics, to derive practical solution methods for reliable solutions.Comment: Revised versio

Constraint reasoning for differential models

The basic motivation of this work was the integration of biophysical models within the interval constraints framework for decision support. Comparing the major features of biophysical models with the expressive power of the existing interval constraints framework, it was clear that the most important inadequacy was related with the representation of differential equations. System dynamics is often modelled through differential equations but there was no way of expressing a differential equation as a constraint and integrate it within the constraints framework. Consequently, the goal of this work is focussed on the integration of ordinary differential equations within the interval constraints framework, which for this purpose is extended with the new formalism of Constraint Satisfaction Differential Problems. Such framework allows the specification of ordinary differential equations, together with related information, by means of constraints, and provides efficient propagation techniques for pruning the domains of their variables. This enabled the integration of all such information in a single constraint whose variables may subsequently be used in other constraints of the model. The specific method used for pruning its variable domains can then be combined with the pruning methods associated with the other constraints in an overall propagation algorithm for reducing the bounds of all model variables. The application of the constraint propagation algorithm for pruning the variable domains, that is, the enforcement of local-consistency, turned out to be insufficient to support decision in practical problems that include differential equations. The domain pruning achieved is not, in general, sufficient to allow safe decisions and the main reason derives from the non-linearity of the differential equations. Consequently, a complementary goal of this work proposes a new strong consistency criterion, Global Hull-consistency, particularly suited to decision support with differential models, by presenting an adequate trade-of between domain pruning and computational effort. Several alternative algorithms are proposed for enforcing Global Hull-consistency and, due to their complexity, an effort was made to provide implementations able to supply any-time pruning results. Since the consistency criterion is dependent on the existence of canonical solutions, it is proposed a local search approach that can be integrated with constraint propagation in continuous domains and, in particular, with the enforcing algorithms for anticipating the finding of canonical solutions. The last goal of this work is the validation of the approach as an important contribution for the integration of biophysical models within decision support. Consequently, a prototype application that integrated all the proposed extensions to the interval constraints framework is developed and used for solving problems in different biophysical domains

Complementarity and related problems

In this thesis, we present results related to complementarity problems. We study the linear complementarity problems on extended second order cones. We convert a linear complementarity problem on an extended second order cone into a mixed complementarity problem on the non-negative orthant. We present algorithms for this problem, and exemplify it by a numerical example. Following this result, we explore the stochastic version of this linear complementarity problem. Finally, we apply complementarity problems on extended second order cones in a portfolio optimisation problem. In this application, we exploit our theoretical results to find an analytical solution to a new portfolio optimisation model. We also study the spherical quasi-convexity of quadratic functions on spherically self-dual convex sets. We start this study by exploring the characterisations and conditions for the spherical positive orthant. We present several conditions characterising the spherical quasi-convexity of quadratic functions. Then we generalise the conditions to the spherical quasi-convexity on spherically self-dual convex sets. In particular, we highlight the case of spherical second order cones