NONMONOTONIC REDUCED PROJECTED HESSIAN METHOD VIA AN AFFINE SCALING INTERIOR MODIFIED GRADIENT PATH FOR BOUNDED-CONSTRAINED OPTIMIZATION

The authors propose an affine scaling modified gradient path method in association with reduced projective Hessian and nonmonotonic interior backtracking line search techniques for solving the linear equality constrained optimization subject to bounds on variables. By employing the QR decomposition of the constraint matrix and the eigensystem decomposition of reduced projective Hes- sian matrix in the subproblem, the authors form affine scaling modified gradient curvilinear path very easily. By using interior backtracking line search technique, each iterate switches to trial step of strict interior feasibility. The global convergence and fast local superlinear/quadratical convergence rates of the proposed algorithm are established under some reasonable conditions. A nonmonotonic criterion should bring about speeding up the convergence progress in some ill-conditioned cases. The results of numerical experiments are reported to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Statistical Investigation and Mapping of Monthly Modified Refractivity Gradient over Pakistan at the 700 Hectopascal Level

This study is an effort to investigate the spatial-temporal variability of the modified refractivity gradient at the 700 hPa pressure level over Pakistan and its neighbouring regions of Afghanistan, India, Iran and the Arabian Sea using the remote sensing data of the AQUA (AIRX3STM) satellite from 2008 to 2012. Trapping conditions only found in December were spread over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan) with an average value of -182.042 M/Km and showing Leptokurtic distributions. The lowest monthly average value super-refractive conditions existed in the autumn season with a strong monthly correlation (>0.91 M/Km). A very high monthly correlation (0.9 M/Km) was found for the super-refractive conditions over the whole time period. The largest spatial and temporal normal conditions appeared in January with the average value for normal conditions being 132.72 M/Km (found over Zabul, Afghanistan) with Leptokurtic distributions. During May normal conditions were the smallest in spatial extent over Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, showing Platykurtic distributions. Sub-refractive conditions mostly prevailed at all times. The probability for extreme sub-refractive conditions was very high in 2008-2012. The highest average sub-refractive conditions appeared in the winter and autumn seasons (spread around Quetta and Kalam, Pakistan). The highest monthly average sub-refractive conditions with a value of 1,265,188 M/Km were found in January and spread around the Sarbaz River Iran. Correlations for the existence of sub-refractive conditions varied from 0.8 M/Km (moderate strong) to 0.4 M/Km during the autumn to winter season. Permanent super-refractive conditions existed over Baluchistan from February to September.

Effects of local thickness defects on the buckling of micro-beam

A buckling model of Timoshenko micro-beam with local thickness defects is established based on a modified gradient elasticity.By introducing the local thickness defects function of the micro-beam,the variable coefficient differential equations of the buckling problem are obtained with the variational principle.Combining the eigensolution series of the complete micro-beam with the Galerkin method,we obtain the critical load and buckling modes of the micro-beam with defects.The results show that the depth and location of the defect are the main factors affecting the critical load,and the combined effect of boundary conditions and defects can significantly change the buckling mode of the micro-beam.The effect of defect location on buckling is related to the axial gradient of the rotation angle,and defects should be avoided at the maximum axial gradient of the rotation angle.The model and method are also applicable to the static deformation and vibration of the micro-beam.

Transverse shear and normal deformation effects on vibration behaviors of functionally graded micro-beams

A quasi-three dimensional model is proposed for the vibration analysis of functionally graded(FG)micro-beams with general boundary conditions based on the modified strain gradient theory.To consider the effects of transverse shear and nor-mal deformations,a general displacement field is achieved by relaxing the assumption of the constant transverse displacement through the thickness.The conventional beam theories including the classical beam theory,the first-order beam theory,and the higher-order beam theory are regarded as the special cases of this model.The material proper-ties changing gradually along the thickness direction are calculated by the Mori-Tanaka scheme.The energy-based formulation is derived by a variational method integrated with the penalty function method,where the Chebyshev orthogonal polynomials are used as the basis function of the displacement variables.The formulation is validated by some comparative examples,and then the parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effects of transverse shear and normal deformations on vibration behaviors.

A Modified Proximal Gradient Method for a Family of Nonsmooth Convex Optimization Problems

In this paper,we propose a modified proximal gradient method for solving a class of nonsmooth convex optimization problems,which arise in many contemporary statistical and signal processing applications.The proposed method adopts a new scheme to construct the descent direction based on the proximal gradient method.It is proven that the modified proximal gradient method is Q-linearly convergent without the assumption of the strong convexity of the objective function.Some numerical experiments have been conducted to evaluate the proposed method eventually.

Nonlocal isogeometric analysis for bidirectional functionally graded porous curved microbeams with arbitrary boundary conditions

This research aims to analyze the static bending and free vibration behaviors of bidirectional functionally graded porous(BFGP)curved microbeams with elastic boundary conditions resting on a Pasternak’s elastic foundation in a hygro-thermal environment.Isogeometric analysis based on non-uniform rational B-splines,first-order shear deformation theory,nonlocal elasticity theory combined with the modified strain gradient theories,modified Timoshenko beam theory are formulated to depict bending and shear deformations of BFGP curved microbeams.Especially,because using the modified Timoshenko beam theory,this study removes the requirement for a shear correction factor and describes shear stress by zero at the upper and lower cross-sectional sites of the BFGP curved microbeam.Different from traditional boundary conditions,where the beginning and end positions of a curved beam are connected by an elastic system of straight and torsion springs.This allows for greater flexibility in controlling the stiffness of the springs to obtain arbitrary boundaries.To assess the accuracy and convergence of the proposed approach,validation numerical examples were conducted in the various examples.

Bending,buckling and vibration analyses of MSGT microcomposite circular-annular sandwich plate under hydro-thermo-magneto-mechanical loadings using DQM

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the bending,buckling,vibration analyses of microcomposite circular-annular sandwich plate with CNT reinforced composite facesheets under hydro-thermo-magneto-mechanical loadings are presented using first order shear deformation theory(FSDT)and modified strain gradient theory(MSGT)that includes three material length scale parameters.Also,an isotropic homogeneous core is considered for microcomposite circular-annular sandwich plate.The generalized rule of mixture is employed to predict mechanical,moisture and thermal properties ofmicrocomposite sandwich plate.By using Hamilton’s principle,governing equations are solved by differential quadrature method(DQM)for a circular annular sandwich plate.The predicted results are validated by carrying out the comparison studies for the FGM plates by modified couple stress theory(MCST).The obtained results are given to indicate the influence of the material length scale parameter,core-to-facesheet thickness ratios,magnetic effect,thermal andmoisture effects on the dimensionless deflection,critical buckling load,and natural frequency of microcomposite circular sandwich plate.The results can be employed in solid-state physics,materials science,nano-electronics,and nano electro-mechanical devices such as microactuators,and microsensor.