Proxy Voting Coordination Mechanisms: Determining How Agents Should Coordinate in a Continuous Preference Space

Illness, injury, and other impediments are common occurrences of everyday life. Such impediments prevent or deter voters from participating in important parts of the voting process, especially deliberation, bargaining, and the voting itself. Without participation, the results of the vote may change. There is a need to provide a system in which voters are still able to participate in important voting processes to ensure their vote is represented. We explore ‘proxy voting,’ a system in which voters are able to select another individual, or proxy, to vote on their behalf. By choosing a good proxy, a voter can still have their vote represented and cause minimal change to the outcome. We additionally explore different ways a proxy can coordinate with their peers, as well as different ways to count votes, in order to make proxy voting as effective as possible. We show that proxy voting is effective in many scenarios and that it is consistently better than not allowing voters who are unable to fully participate to have their voices heard

Optimality conditions for abs-normal NLPs

Structured nonsmoothness is widely present in practical optimization problems. A particularly attractive class of nonsmooth problems, both from a theoretical and from an algorithmic perspective, are nonsmooth NLPs with equality and inequality constraints in abs-normal form, so-called abs-normal NLPs. In this thesis optimality conditions for this particular class are obtained. To this aim, first the theory for the case of unconstrained optimization problems in abs-normal form of Andreas Griewank and Andrea Walther is extended. In particular, similar necessary and sufficient conditions of first and second order are obtained that are directly based on classical Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) theory for smooth NLPs. Then, it is shown that the class of abs-normal NLPs is equivalent to the class of Mathematical Programs with Equilibrium Constraints (MPECs). Hence, the regularity assumption LIKQ introduced for the abs-normal NLP turns out to be equivalent to MPEC-LICQ. Moreover, stationarity concepts and optimality conditions under these regularity assumptions of linear independece type are equivalent up to technical assumptions. Next, well established constraint qualifications of Mangasarian Fromovitz, Abadie and Guignard type for MPECs are used to define corresponding concepts for abs-normal NLPs. Then, it is shown that kink qualifications and MPEC constraint qualifications of Mangasarian Fromovitz resp. Abadie type are equivalent. As it remains open if this holds for Guignard type kink and constraint qualifications, branch formulations for abs-normal NLPs and MPECs are introduced. Then, equivalence of Abadie’s and Guignard’s constraint qualifications for all branch problems hold. Throughout a reformulation of inequalities with absolute value slacks is considered. It preserves constraint qualifications of linear independence and Abadie type but not of Mangasarian Fromovitz type. For Guignard type it is still an open question but ACQ and GCQ are preserved passing over to branch problems. Further, M-stationarity and B-stationarity concepts for abs-normal NLPs are introduced and corresponding first order optimality con- ditions are proven using the corresponding concepts for MPECs. Moreover, a reformulation to extend the optimality conditions for abs-normal NLPs to those with additional nonsmooth objective functions is given and the preservation of regularity assumptions is considered. Using this, it is shown that the unconstrained abs-normal NLP always satisfies constraint qualifications of Abadie and thus Guignard type. Hence, in this special case every local minimizer satisfies the M-stationarity and B-stationarity concepts for abs-normal NLPs

Relations between Abs-Normal NLPs and MPCCs. Part 2: Weak Constraint Qualifications

This work continues an ongoing effort to compare non-smooth optimization problems in abs-normal form to Mathematical Programs with Complementarity Constraints (MPCCs). We study general Nonlinear Programs with equality and inequality constraints in abs-normal form, so-called Abs-Normal NLPs, and their relation to equivalent MPCC reformulations. We introduce the concepts of Abadie's and Guignard's kink qualification and prove relations to MPCC-ACQ and MPCC-GCQ for the counterpart MPCC formulations. Due to non-uniqueness of a specific slack reformulation suggested in [10], the relations are non-trivial. It turns out that constraint qualifications of Abadie type are preserved. We also prove the weaker result that equivalence of Guginard's (and Abadie's) constraint qualifications for all branch problems hold, while the question of GCQ preservation remains open. Finally, we introduce M-stationarity and B-stationarity concepts for abs-normal NLPs and prove first order optimality conditions corresponding to MPCC counterpart formulations

Relations between Abs-Normal NLPs and MPCCs. Part 1: Strong Constraint Qualifications

This work is part of an ongoing effort of comparing non-smooth optimization problems in abs-normal form to MPCCs. We study the general abs-normal NLP with equality and inequality constraints in relation to an equivalent MPCC reformulation. We show that kink qualifications and MPCC constraint qualifications of linear independence type and Mangasarian-Fromovitz type are equivalent. Then we consider strong stationarity concepts with first and second order optimality conditions, which again turn out to be equivalent for the two problem classes. Throughout we also consider specific slack reformulations suggested in [9], which preserve constraint qualifications of linear independence type but not of Mangasarian-Fromovitz type

Impedance calculations for power cables to primary coolant pump motors

The LOFT primary system motor generator sets are located in Room B-239 and are connected to the primary coolant pumps by means of a power cable. The calculated average impedance of this cable is 0.005323 ohms per unit resistance and 0.006025 ohms per unit reactance based on 369.6 kVA and 480 volts. The report was written to show the development of power cable parameters that are to be used in the SICLOPS (Simulation of LOFT Reactor Coolant Loop Pumping System) digital computer program as written in LTR 1142-16 and also used in the pump coastdowns for the FSAR Analysis

Schlussbericht VanAssist

Hauptziel dieses Projekts war die Entwicklung einer integrierten Fahrzeug- und Systemtechnologie, die eine weitgehend emissionsfreie und automatisierte Zustellung von Gütern in urbanen Zentren ermöglicht