Polynomial Meshes: Computation and Approximation

We present the software package WAM, written in Matlab, that generates Weakly Admissible Meshes and Discrete Extremal Sets of Fekete and Leja type, for 2d and 3d polynomial least squares and interpolation on compact sets with various geometries. Possible applications range from data fitting to high-order methods for PDEs

Geometric fitting by two coaxial cylinders

Fitting two coaxial cylinders to data is a standard problem incomputational metrology and reverse engineering processes, which also arisesin medical imaging. There are many fitting criteria that can beused. One that is widely used in metrology, for example, isthat of the sum of squared minimal distance. A similarnumerical method is developed to fit two coaxial cylinders inthe general position to 3D data, and numerical examples are given

The Isbell monad

In 1966, John Isbell introduced a construction on categories which he termed the "couple category" but which has since come to be known as the Isbell envelope. The Isbell envelope, which combines the ideas of contravariant and covariant presheaves, has found applications in category theory, logic, and differential geometry. We clarify its meaning by exhibiting the assignation sending a locally small category to its Isbell envelope as the action on objects of a pseudomonad on the 2-category of locally small categories; this is the Isbell monad of the title. We characterise the pseudoalgebras of the Isbell monad as categories equipped with a cylinder factorisation system; this notion, which appears to be new, is an extension of Freyd and Kelly's notion of factorisation system from orthogonal classes of arrows to orthogonal classes of cocones and cones.Comment: 21 page

Radii minimal projections of polytopes and constrained optimization of symmetric polynomials

We provide a characterization of the radii minimal projections of polytopes onto $j$-dimensional subspaces in Euclidean space \E^n. Applied on simplices this characterization allows to reduce the computation of an outer radius to a computation in the circumscribing case or to the computation of an outer radius of a lower-dimensional simplex. In the second part of the paper, we use this characterization to determine the sequence of outer $(n-1)$-radii of regular simplices (which are the radii of smallest enclosing cylinders). This settles a question which arose from the incidence that a paper by Wei{\ss}bach (1983) on this determination was erroneous. In the proof, we first reduce the problem to a constrained optimization problem of symmetric polynomials and then to an optimization problem in a fixed number of variables with additional integer constraints.Comment: Minor revisions. To appear in Advances in Geometr

Anderson Localization in Disordered Vibrating Rods

We study, both experimentally and numerically, the Anderson localization phenomenon in torsional waves of a disordered elastic rod, which consists of a cylinder with randomly spaced notches. We find that the normal-mode wave amplitudes are exponentially localized as occurs in disordered solids. The localization length is measured using these wave amplitudes and it is shown to decrease as a function of frequency. The normal-mode spectrum is also measured as well as computed, so its level statistics can be analyzed. Fitting the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution a level repulsion parameter is defined that also varies with frequency. The localization length can then be expressed as a function of the repulsion parameter. There exists a range in which the localization length is a linear function of the repulsion parameter, which is consistent with Random Matrix Theory. However, at low values of the repulsion parameter the linear dependence does not hold.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

New Confocal Hyperbola-based Ellipse Fitting with Applications to Estimating Parameters of Mechanical Pipes from Point Clouds

This manuscript presents a new method for fitting ellipses to two-dimensional data using the confocal hyperbola approximation to the geometric distance of points to ellipses. The proposed method was evaluated and compared to established methods on simulated and real-world datasets. First, it was revealed that the confocal hyperbola distance considerably outperforms other distance approximations such as algebraic and Sampson. Next, the proposed ellipse fitting method was compared with five reliable and established methods proposed by Halir, Taubin, Kanatani, Ahn and Szpak. The performance of each method as a function of rotation, aspect ratio, noise, and arc-length were examined. It was observed that the proposed ellipse fitting method achieved almost identical results (and in some cases better) than the gold standard geometric method of Ahn and outperformed the remaining methods in all simulation experiments. Finally, the proposed method outperformed the considered ellipse fitting methods in estimating the geometric parameters of cylindrical mechanical pipes from point clouds. The results of the experiments show that the confocal hyperbola is an excellent approximation to the true geometric distance and produces reliable and accurate ellipse fitting in practical settings