Exact two-terminal reliability of some directed networks

The calculation of network reliability in a probabilistic context has long been an issue of practical and academic importance. Conventional approaches (determination of bounds, sums of disjoint products algorithms, Monte Carlo evaluations, studies of the reliability polynomials, etc.) only provide approximations when the network's size increases, even when nodes do not fail and all edges have the same reliability p. We consider here a directed, generic graph of arbitrary size mimicking real-life long-haul communication networks, and give the exact, analytical solution for the two-terminal reliability. This solution involves a product of transfer matrices, in which individual reliabilities of edges and nodes are taken into account. The special case of identical edge and node reliabilities (p and rho, respectively) is addressed. We consider a case study based on a commonly-used configuration, and assess the influence of the edges being directed (or not) on various measures of network performance. While the two-terminal reliability, the failure frequency and the failure rate of the connection are quite similar, the locations of complex zeros of the two-terminal reliability polynomials exhibit strong differences, and various structure transitions at specific values of rho. The present work could be extended to provide a catalog of exactly solvable networks in terms of reliability, which could be useful as building blocks for new and improved bounds, as well as benchmarks, in the general case

Exact solutions for the two- and all-terminal reliabilities of the Brecht-Colbourn ladder and the generalized fan

The two- and all-terminal reliabilities of the Brecht-Colbourn ladder and the generalized fan have been calculated exactly for arbitrary size as well as arbitrary individual edge and node reliabilities, using transfer matrices of dimension four at most. While the all-terminal reliabilities of these graphs are identical, the special case of identical edge ($p$) and node ($\rho$) reliabilities shows that their two-terminal reliabilities are quite distinct, as demonstrated by their generating functions and the locations of the zeros of the reliability polynomials, which undergo structural transitions at $\rho = \displaystyle {1/2}$

Analytic properties of mirror maps

We consider a multi-parameter family of canonical coordinates and mirror maps o\ riginally introduced by Zudilin [Math. Notes 71 (2002), 604-616]. This family includes many of the known one-variable mirror maps as special cases, in particular many of modular origin and the celebrated example of Candelas, de la Ossa, Green and\ Parkes [Nucl. Phys. B359 (1991), 21-74] associated to the quintic hypersurface in $\mathbb P^4(\mathbb C)$. In [Duke Math. J. 151 (2010), 175-218], we proved that all coeffi\ cients in the Taylor expansions at 0 of these canonical coordinates (and, hence, of the corresponding mirror maps) are integers. Here we prove that all coefficients in the Taylor expansions at 0 of these canonical coordinates are positive. Furthermore, we provide several results pertaining to the behaviour of the canonical coordinates and mirror maps as complex functions. In particular, we address analytic continuation, points of singularity, and radius of convergence of these functions. We present several very precise conjectures on the radius of convergence of the mirror maps and the sign pattern of the coefficients in their Taylor expansions at 0.Comment: AmS-LaTeX; 40 page

Exact Failure Frequency Calculations for Extended Systems

This paper shows how the steady-state availability and failure frequency can be calculated in a single pass for very large systems, when the availability is expressed as a product of matrices. We apply the general procedure to $k$-out-of-$n$:G and linear consecutive $k$-out-of-$n$:F systems, and to a simple ladder network in which each edge and node may fail. We also give the associated generating functions when the components have identical availabilities and failure rates. For large systems, the failure rate of the whole system is asymptotically proportional to its size. This paves the way to ready-to-use formulae for various architectures, as well as proof that the differential operator approach to failure frequency calculations is very useful and straightforward