Library

Description: Im Rahmen ihrer Strategie zur Langzeitarchivierung forscht die Deutsche Kinemathek in einer Kooperation mit dem Zuse-Institut Berlin (ZIB) an der digitalen Langzeitarchivierung von AV-Materialien. Ausgangspunkt des Projektes sind die enormen Dateigrößen und die heterogenen Dateiformate, die einem Werk und einer Fassung zugeordnet werden müssen. Die Verwendung von persistenten Identifikatoren stellt den Lösungsansatz dar.

Description: While graph covering is a fundamental and well-studied problem, this field lacks a broad and unified literature review. The holistic overview of graph covering given in this article attempts to close this gap. The focus lies on a characterization and classification of the different problems discussed in the literature. In addition, notable results and common approaches are also included. Whenever appropriate, this review extends to the corresponding partitioning problems.

Description: We present an optimization model which is capable of routing and ordering trains on a microscopic level under a moving block regime. Based on a general timetabling definition (GTTP) that allows the plug in of arbitrarily detailed methods to compute running and headway times, we describe a layered graph approach using velocity expansion, and develop a mixed integer linear programming formulation. Finally, we present promising results for a German corridor scenario with mixed traffic, indicating that applying branch-and-cut to our model is able to solve reasonably sized instances with up to hundred trains to optimality.

Description: We propose a new mixed integer programming based heuristic for computing new benchmark primal solutions for instances of the PESPlib. The PESPlib is a collection of instances for the Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP), comprising periodic timetabling problems inspired by real-world railway timetabling settings, and attracting several international research teams during the last years. We describe two strategies to merge a set of good periodic timetables. These make use of the instance structure and minimum weight cycle bases, finally leading to restricted mixed integer programming formulations with tighter variable bounds. Implementing this timetable merging approach in a concurrent solver, we improve the objective values of the best known solutions for the smallest and largest PESPlib instances by 1.7 and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Description: Die Sicherung und längerfristige Archivierung persönlich relevanter Dokumente und Dateien, in der Fachliteratur als Personal Digital Archiving (PDA) bezeichnet, ist eine für Privatpersonen zunehmend wichtiger werdende Aufgabe. Praktische Anleitungen und weiterführende Hinweise zur Umsetzung dieser Aufgabe gibt die auf unterschiedliche Nutzer:innenperspektiven ausgerichtete Webseite meinDigitalesArchiv.de, die seit 2020 von der nestor-AG PDA bereitgestellt wird. Mit den Informationen dieser Webseite können und sollten Bibliotheken und andere Einrichtungen, die Informationskompetenz vermitteln, Privatpersonen für die Sicherung ihrer persönlichen digitalen Daten sensibilisieren und schulen. Mit der Umsetzung dieser Aufgabe können Öffentliche wie Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken zur Sicherung auch gesamtgesellschaftlich relevanter Erinnerungsbausteine beitragen.

Description: 二次割当問題は線形緩和が弱いことが知られ，強化のため多様な緩和手法が考案されているが，その一つである二重非負値計画緩和（ DNN 緩和）及びその解法として近年研究が進んでいるニュートン・ブラケット法を紹介し，それらに基づく分枝限定法の実装及び数値実験結果について報告する．

Description: The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) is the standard mathematical tool for optimizing periodic timetabling problems in public transport. A solution to PESP consists of three parts: a periodic timetable, a periodic tension, and integer periodic offset values. While the space of periodic tension has received much attention in the past, we explore geometric properties of the other two components, establishing novel connections between periodic timetabling and discrete geometry. Firstly, we study the space of feasible periodic timetables, and decompose it into polytropes, i.e., polytopes that are convex both classically and in the sense of tropical geometry. We then study this decomposition and use it to outline a new heuristic for PESP, based on the tropical neighbourhood of the polytropes. Secondly, we recognize that the space of fractional cycle offsets is in fact a zonotope. We relate its zonotopal tilings back to the hyperrectangle of fractional periodic tensions and to the tropical neighbourhood of the periodic timetable space. To conclude we also use this new understanding to give tight lower bounds on the minimum width of an integral cycle basis.

Description: Optimizing the transient control of gas networks is a highly challenging task. The corresponding model incorporates the combinatorial complexity of determining the settings for the many active elements as well as the non-linear and non-convex nature of the physical and technical principles of gas transport. In this paper, we present the latest improvements of our ongoing work to solve this problem for real-world, large-scale problem instances: By adjusting our mixed-integer non-linear programming model regarding the gas compression capabilities in the network, we reflect the technical limits of the underlying units more accurately while maintaining a similar overall model size. In addition, we introduce a new algorithmic approach that is based on splitting the complexity of the problem by first finding assignments for discrete variables and then determining the continuous variables as locally optimal solution of the corresponding non-linear program. For the first task, we design multiple different heuristics based on concepts for general time-expanded optimization problems that find solutions by solving a sequence of sub-problems defined on reduced time horizons. To demonstrate the competitiveness of our approach, we test our algorithm on particularly challenging historic demand scenarios. The results show that high-quality solutions are obtained reliably within short solving times, making the algorithm well-suited to be applied at the core of time-critical industrial applications.

Description: Public transportation networks are typically operated with a periodic timetable. The periodic event scheduling problem (PESP) is the standard mathematical modeling tool for periodic timetabling. PESP is a computationally very challenging problem: For example, solving the instances of the benchmarking library PESPlib to optimality seems out of reach. Since PESP can be solved in linear time on trees, and the treewidth is a rather small graph parameter in the networks of the PESPlib, it is a natural question to ask whether there are polynomial-time algorithms for input networks of bounded treewidth, or even better, fixed-parameter tractable algorithms. We show that deciding the feasibility of a PESP instance is NP-hard even when the treewidth is 2, the branchwidth is 2, or the carvingwidth is 3. Analogous results hold for the optimization of reduced PESP instances, where the feasibility problem is trivial. Moreover, we show W[1]-hardness of the general feasibility problem with respect to treewidth, which means that we can most likely only accomplish pseudo-polynomial-time algorithms on input networks with bounded tree- or branchwidth. We present two such algorithms based on dynamic programming. We further analyze the parameterized complexity of PESP with bounded cyclomatic number, diameter, or vertex cover number. For event-activity networks with a special—but standard—structure, we give explicit and sharp bounds on the branchwidth in terms of the maximum degree and the carvingwidth of an underlying line network. Finally, we investigate several parameters on the smallest instance of the benchmarking library PESPlib.

Description: Cut selection is a subroutine used in all modern mixed-integer linear programming solvers with the goal of selecting a subset of generated cuts that induce optimal solver performance. These solvers have millions of parameter combinations, and so are excellent candidates for parameter tuning. Cut selection scoring rules are usually weighted sums of different measurements, where the weights are parameters. We present a parametric family of mixed-integer linear programs together with infinitely many family-wide valid cuts. Some of these cuts can induce integer optimal solutions directly after being applied, while others fail to do so even if an infinite amount are applied. We show for a specific cut selection rule, that any finite grid search of the parameter space will always miss all parameter values, which select integer optimal inducing cuts in an infinite amount of our problems. We propose a variation on the design of existing graph convolutional neural networks, adapting them to learn cut selection rule parameters. We present a reinforcement learning framework for selecting cuts, and train our design using said framework over MIPLIB 2017. Our framework and design show that adaptive cut selection does substantially improve performance over a diverse set of instances, but that finding a single function describing such a rule is difficult. Code for reproducing all experiments is available at https://github.com/Opt-Mucca/Adaptive-Cutsel-MILP.

Description: Secure energy transport is considered as highly relevant for the basic infrastructure of nowadays society and economy. To satisfy increasing demands and to handle more diverse transport situations, operators of energy networks regularly expand the capacity of their network by building new network elements, known as the expansion planning problem. A key constraint function in expansion planning problems is a nonlinear and nonconvex potential loss function. In order to improve the algorithmic performance of state-of-the-art MINLP solvers, this paper presents an algebraic description for the convex envelope of this function. Through a thorough computational study, we show that this tighter relaxation tremendously improves the performance of the MINLP solver SCIP on a large test set of practically relevant instances for the expansion planning problem. In particular, the results show that our achievements lead to an improvement of the solver performance for a development version by up to 58%.

Description: It is well known as the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) that an interface of tangential velocity discontinuity is necessarily unstable, regardless of the velocity difference's strength. However, the KHI is suppressed for shallow water flows if the Froude number, defined by the ratio of the velocity difference to the gravity wave's speed, is sufficiently large. In this investigation, we examine the effect of the depth difference of two fluid layers on the KHI. The depth difference enhances instability. Given the Froude number in the instability range, the growth rate sensitively depends on the depth ratio and increases monotonically with the depth ratio difference from unity. The critical value of the Froude number for stabilization varies with the depth ratio and attains the minimum value √8 for equal depth. This behavior is verified by asymptotic analysis.

Description: The European energy system has been through a fundamental transformation since the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The transition involves several energy-generating and consuming sectors emphasizing sector coupling. The increase in the share of renewable energy sources has revealed the need for flexibility in the electri city grid. Thus, holistic planning of pathways towards decarbonized energy systems also involves assessing the gas infrastructure to provide such a flexibility and support for the security of supply. In this paper, we propose a workflow to investigate such optimal energy transition pathways considering sector coupling. This workflow involves an integrated operational analysis of the electricity market, its transmission grid, and the gas grid in high spatio-temporal resolution. In a case study on a pan-European scale between 2020-2050, we show that carbon neutrality can be reached within feasible additional costs and in time. However, the manifestation of the potential pathways strongly depends on political and technological constraints. Sector coupling acts as an enabler of cross-border cooperation to achieve both, decarbonization and security of supply.

Description: Biological armors derive their mechanical integrity in part from their geometric architectures, often involving tessellations: individual structural elements tiled together to form surface shells. The carapace of boxfish, for example, is comprised of mineralized polygonal plates, called scutes, arranged in a complex geometric pattern and nearly completely encasing the body. In contrast to artificial armors, the boxfish exoskeleton grows with the fish; the relationship between the tessellation and the gross structure of the armor is therefore critical to sustained protection throughout growth. To clarify whether or how the boxfish tessellation is maintained or altered with age, we quantify architectural aspects of the tessellated carapace of the longhorn cowfish Lactoria cornuta through ontogeny (across nearly an order of magnitude in standard length) and in a high-throughput fashion, using high-resolution microCT data and segmentation algorithms to characterize the hundreds of scutes that cover each individual. We show that carapace growth is canalized with little variability across individuals: rather than continually adding scutes to enlarge the carapace surface, the number of scutes is surprisingly constant, with scutes increasing in volume, thickness, and especially width with age. As cowfish and their scutes grow, scutes become comparatively thinner, with the scutes at the edges (weak points in a boxy architecture) being some of the thickest and most reinforced in younger animals and thinning most slowly across ontogeny. In contrast, smaller scutes with more variable curvature were found in the limited areas of more complex topology (e.g. around fin insertions, mouth, and anus). Measurements of Gaussian and mean curvature illustrate that cowfish are essentially tessellated boxes throughout life: predominantly zero curvature surfaces comprised of mostly flat scutes, and with scutes with sharp bends used sparingly to form box edges. Since growth of a curved, tiled surface with a fixed number of tiles would require tile restructuring to accommodate the surface’s changing radius of curvature, our results therefore illustrate a previously unappreciated advantage of the odd boxfish morphology: by having predominantly flat surfaces, it is the box-like body form that in fact permits a relatively straightforward growth system of this tessellated architecture (i.e. where material is added to scute edges). Our characterization of the ontogeny and maintenance of the carapace tessellation provides insights into the potentially conflicting mechanical, geometric and developmental constraints of this species, but also perspectives into natural strategies for constructing mutable tiled architectures.

Description: The electric conductivity of cardiac tissue determines excitation propagation and is important for quantifying ischemia and scar tissue and for building personalized models. Estimating conductivity distributions from endocardial mapping data is a challenging inverse problem due to the computational complexity of the monodomain equation, which describes the cardiac excitation. For computing a maximum posterior estimate, we investigate different optimization approaches based on adjoint gradient computation: steepest descent, limited memory BFGS, and recursive multilevel trust region methods, which are using mesh hierarchies or heterogeneous model hierarchies. We compare overall performance, asymptotic convergence rate, and pre-asymptotic progress on selected examples in order to assess the benefit of our multifidelity acceleration.

Description: Tai256c is the largest unsolved quadratic assignment problem (QAP) instance in QAPLIB; a 1.48% gap remains between the best known feasible objective value and lower bound of the unknown optimal value. This paper shows that the instance can be converted into a 256 dimensional binary quadratic optimization problem (BQOP) with a single cardinality constraint which requires the sum of the binary variables to be 92.The converted BQOP is much simpler than the original QAP tai256c and it also inherits some of the symmetry properties. However, it is still very difficult to solve. We present an efficient branch and bound method for improving the lower bound effectively. A new lower bound with 1.36% gap is also provided.

Description: The combination of Monte Carlo methods and deep learning has recently led to efficient algorithms for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) in high dimensions. Related learning problems are often stated as variational formulations based on associated stochastic differential equations (SDEs), which allow the minimization of corresponding losses using gradient-based optimization methods. In respective numerical implementations it is therefore crucial to rely on adequate gradient estimators that exhibit low variance in order to reach convergence accurately and swiftly. In this article, we rigorously investigate corresponding numerical aspects that appear in the context of linear Kolmogorov PDEs. In particular, we systematically compare existing deep learning approaches and provide theoretical explanations for their performances. Subsequently, we suggest novel methods that can be shown to be more robust both theoretically and numerically, leading to substantial performance improvements.

Description: We establish a connection between stochastic optimal control and generative models based on stochastic differential equations (SDEs) such as recently developed diffusion probabilistic models. In particular, we derive a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation that governs the evolution of the log-densities of the underlying SDE marginals. This perspective allows to transfer methods from optimal control theory to generative modeling. First, we show that the evidence lower bound is a direct consequence of the well-known verification theorem from control theory. Further, we develop a novel diffusion-based method for sampling from unnormalized densities -- a problem frequently occurring in statistics and computational sciences.

Description: This study investigates the progress made in LP and MILP solver performance during the last two decades by comparing the solver software from the beginning of the millennium with the codes available today. On average, we found out that for solving LP/MILP, computer hardware got about 20 times faster, and the algorithms improved by a factor of about nine for LP and around 50 for MILP, which gives a total speed-up of about 180 and 1,000 times, respectively. However, these numbers have a very high variance and they considerably underestimate the progress made on the algorithmic side: many problem instances can nowadays be solved within seconds, which the old codes are not able to solve within any reasonable time.

Description: We study two related problems concerning the number of monochromatic cliques in two-colorings of the complete graph that go back to questions of Erdős. Most notably, we improve the 25-year-old upper bounds of Thomason on the Ramsey multiplicity of K4 and K5 and we settle the minimum number of independent sets of size 4 in graphs with clique number at most 4. Motivated by the elusiveness of the symmetric Ramsey multiplicity problem, we also introduce an off-diagonal variant and obtain tight results when counting monochromatic K4 or K5 in only one of the colors and triangles in the other. The extremal constructions for each problem turn out to be blow-ups of a finite graph and were found through search heuristics. They are complemented by lower bounds and stability results established using Flag Algebras, resulting in a fully computer-assisted approach. More broadly, these problems lead us to the study of the region of possible pairs of clique and independent set densities that can be realized as the limit of some sequence of graphs.

Description: The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP) is the central mathematical model behind the optimization of periodic timetables in public transport. We apply Benders decomposition to the incidence-based MIP formulation of PESP. The resulting formulation exhibits particularly nice features: The subproblem is a minimum cost network flow problem, and feasibility cuts are equivalent to the well-known cycle inequalities by Odijk. We integrate the Benders approach into a branch-and-cut framework, and assess the performance of this method on instances derived from the benchmarking library PESPlib.

Description: Periodic timetabling is a central aspect of both the long-term organization and the day-to-day operations of a public transportation system. The Periodic Event Scheduling Problem (PESP), the combinatorial optimization problem that forms the mathematical basis of periodic timetabling, is an extremely hard problem, for which optimal solutions are hardly ever found in practice. The most prominent solving strategies today are based on mixed-integer programming, and there is a concurrent PESP solver employing a wide range of heuristics [Borndörfer et al., 2020]. We present tropical neighborhood search (tns), a novel PESP heuristic. The method is based on the relations between periodic timetabling and tropical geometry [Bortoletto et al., 2022]. We implement tns into the concurrent solver, and test it on instances of the benchmarking library PESPlib. The inclusion of tns turns out to be quite beneficial to the solver: tns is able to escape local optima for the modulo network simplex algorithm, and the overall share of improvement coming from tns is substantial compared to the other methods available in the solver. Finally, we provide better primal bounds for five PESPlib instances.

Description: OASIcs, Volume 106, ATMOS 2022, Complete Volume

Description: Extracting information about dynamical systems from models learned off simulation data has become an increasingly important research topic in the natural and engineering sciences. Modeling the Koopman operator semigroup has played a central role in this context. As the approximation quality of any such model critically depends on the basis set, recent work has focused on deriving data-efficient representations of the Koopman operator in low-rank tensor formats, enabling the use of powerful model classes while avoiding over-fitting. On the other hand, detailed information about the system at hand can be extracted from models for the infinitesimal generator, also called Kolmogorov backward operator for stochastic differential equations. In this work, we present a data-driven method to efficiently approximate the generator using the tensor train (TT) format. The centerpiece of the method is a TT representation of the tensor of generator evaluations at all data sites. We analyze consistency and complexity of the method, present extensions to practically relevant settings, and demonstrate its applicability to benchmark numerical examples.

Description: Finding connected subgraphs of maximum weight subject to additional constraints on the subgraphs is a common (sub)problem in many applications. In this paper, we study the Maximum Weight Connected Subgraph Problem with a given root node and a lower and upper capacity constraint on the chosen subgraph. In addition, the nodes of the input graph are colored blue and red, and the chosen subgraph is required to be balanced regarding its cumulated blue and red weight. This problem arises as an essential subproblem in district planning applications. We show that the problem is NP-hard and give an integer programming formulation. By exploiting the capacity and balancing condition, we develop a powerful reduction technique that is able to significantly shrink the problem size. In addition, we propose a method to strengthen the LP relaxation of our formulation by identifying conflict pairs, i.e., nodes that cannot be both part of a chosen subgraph. Our computational study confirms the positive impact of the new preprocessing technique and of the proposed conflict cuts.

Description: We consider autocovariance operators of a stationary stochastic process on a Polish space that is embedded into a reproducing kernel Hilbert space. We investigate how empirical estimates of these operators converge along realizations of the process under various conditions. In particular, we examine ergodic and strongly mixing processes and obtain several asymptotic results as well as finite sample error bounds. We provide applications of our theory in terms of consistency results for kernel PCA with dependent data and the conditional mean embedding of transition probabilities. Finally, we use our approach to examine the nonparametric estimation of Markov transition operators and highlight how our theory can give a consistency analysis for a large family of spectral analysis methods including kernel-based dynamic mode decomposition.

Description: This work addresses the problem of determining the number of components from sequential spectroscopic data analyzed by non-negative matrix factorization without separability assumption (SepFree NMF). These data are stored in a matrix M of dimension “measured times” versus “measured wavenumbers” and can be decomposed to obtain the spectral fingerprints of the states and their evolution over time. SepFree NMF assumes a memoryless (Markovian) process to underline the dynamics and decomposes M so that M=WH, with W representing the components’ fingerprints and H their kinetics. However, the rank of this decomposition (i.e., the number of physical states in the process) has to be guessed from pre-existing knowledge on the observed process. We propose a measure for determining the number of components with the computation of the minimal memory effect resulting from the decomposition; by quantifying how much the obtained factorization is deviating from the Markovian property, we are able to score factorizations of a different number of components. In this way, we estimate the number of different entities which contribute to the observed system, and we can extract kinetic information without knowing the characteristic spectra of the single components. This manuscript provides the mathematical background as well as an analysis of computer generated and experimental sequentially measured Raman spectra.

Description: We consider the line planning problem in public transport in the Parametric City, an idealized model that captures typical scenarios by a (small) number of parameters. The Parametric City is rotation symmetric, but optimal line plans are not always symmetric. This raises the question to quantify the symmetry gap between the best symmetric and the overall best solution. For our analysis, we formulate the line planning problem as a mixed integer linear program, that can be solved in polynomial time if the solutions are forced to be symmetric. The symmetry gap is provably small when a specific Parametric City parameter is fixed, and we give an approximation algorithm for line planning in the Parametric City in this case. While the symmetry gap can be arbitrarily large in general, we show that symmetric line plans are a good choice in most practical situations.

Description: In this paper, we consider the eigenvalue PDE problem of the infinitesimal generators of metastable diffusion processes. We propose a numerical algorithm based on training artificial neural networks for solving the leading eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of such high-dimensional eigenvalue problem. The algorithm is useful in understanding the dynamical behaviors of metastable processes on large timescales. We demonstrate the capability of our algorithm on a high-dimensional model problem, and on the simple molecular system alanine dipeptide.

Description: We propose new Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms to sample probability distributions on submanifolds, which generalize previous methods by allowing the use of set-valued maps in the proposal step of the MCMC algorithms. The motivation for this generalization is that the numerical solvers used to project proposed moves to the submanifold of interest may find several solutions. We show that the new algorithms indeed sample the target probability measure correctly, thanks to some carefully enforced reversibility property. We demonstrate the interest of the new MCMC algorithms on illustrative numerical examples.

Description: As a result of the legislation for gas markets introduced by the European Union in 2005, separate independent companies have to conduct the transport and trading of natural gas. The current gas market of Germany, which has a market value of more than 54 billion USD, consists of Transmission System Operators (TSO), network users, and traders. Traders can nominate a certain amount of gas anytime and anywhere in the network. Such unrestricted access for the traders, on the other hand, increase the uncertainty in the gas supply management. Some customers’ behaviors may cause abrupt structural changes in gas flow time series. In particular, it is a challenging task for the TSO operators to predict gas nominations 6 to 10 h-ahead. In our study, we aim to investigate the regime changes in time series of nominations to predict the 6 to 10 h-ahead of gas nominations.

Description: Der Kooperative Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg wird heute 25 Jahre alt. Seit dem 1. April 1997 entwickelt der KOBV neue Dienstleistungen für Nutzende und Bibliotheken, baut Informationsinfrastrukturen in Berlin und Brandenburg aus, vernetzt Bibliotheken aus der Region und informiert über aktuelle Themen. Im Sondernewsletter geben uns aktuelle und ehemalige KOBV-Mitarbeitende/Mitglieder Antworten auf Fragen zur Entstehung und Weiterentwicklung des Verbundes. Lesen und feiern Sie mit uns zusammen!

Description: Mit DeepGreen wurde eine Infrastruktur aufgebaut und etabliert, die Zeitschriftenartikel von wissenschaftlichen Verlagen abholt und berechtigten Bibliotheken zur Veröffentlichung in ihren Repositorien sendet. DeepGreen unterstützt Bibliotheken als Dienstleister für Hochschulen, außeruniversitäre Einrichtungen und die dort tätigen Wissenschaftler*innen, Publikationen auf Open-Access-Repositorien frei zugänglich zu machen und fördert das Zusammenspiel von wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen und Verlagen. DeepGreen wurde von Januar 2016 bis Juni 2021 von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft gefördert und wird nun vom Kooperativen Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg, von der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek und von der Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg in arbeitsteiliger Eigenleistung für zwei Jahre weiterbetrieben. Der vorliegende Beitrag beleuchtet vielfältige Aspekte bei der Realisierung von DeepGreen und geht auf die Perspektiven dieser zentralen Open-Access-Infrastruktur für deutsche Wissenschaftseinrichtungen ein.

Description: DeepGreen wurde vom 01.08.2018 bis zum 30.06.2021 in einer zweiten Projektphase von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) gefördert. DeepGreen unterstützt Bibliotheken als Dienstleister für Hochschulen, außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtungen und die dort tätigen Wissenschaftler:innen dabei, Publikationen auf Open-Access-Repositorien frei zugänglich zu machen und fördert das Zusammenspiel von wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen und Verlagen. An der zweiten Projektphase waren der Kooperative Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg, die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, der Bibliotheksverbund Bayern, die Universitätsbibliotheken der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg und der Technischen Universität Berlin und das Helmholtz Open Science Office beteiligt. In dem Projekt wurde erfolgreich eine technische und organisatorische Lösung zur automatisierten Verteilung von Artikeldaten wissenschaftlicher Verlage an institutionelle und fachliche Repositorien entwickelt. In der zweiten Projektphase lag der Fokus auf der Erprobung der Datendrehscheibe in der Praxis und der Ausweitung auf weitere Datenabnehmer und weitere Verlage. Im Anschluss an die DFG-geförderte Projektlaufzeit ist DeepGreen in einen zweijährigen Pilotbetrieb übergegangen. Ziel des Pilotbetriebs ist es, den Übergang in einen bundesweiten Real-Betrieb vorzubereiten.

Description: During the apparition of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) solar irradiation causes varying rates for sublimation of volatile species from the cometary nucleus. Because sublimation processes take place close to the cometary surface, the relative abundance of volatiles in the coma and the ice composition are related to each other. To quantify this relation we assume a model for the expansion of a collisionless gas from the surface into the surrounding space. We use an inverse model approach to relate the in situ measurements of gas densities from the two Rosetta instruments COPS (COmet Pressure Sensor) and DFMS (Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer) at the positions of the spacecraft to the locations of surface gas emissions during the Rosetta mission 2014-2016. We assume the temporally integrated gas emissions to be representative for the ice composition close to the surface. Our analysis shows characteristic differences in the ice compositions between both hemispheres of 67P/C-G. In particular CO2 ice has a reduced abundance on the northern hemisphere. In contrast to the hemispherical differences, the two lobes do not show significant differences in terms of their ice composition.

Description: The Rosetta mission to comet 67P/C-G provided a detailed view of the near nucleus environment of an active Jupiter family comet. The continuous monitoring of the gas pressure with the ROSINA experiment at the location of the Rosetta spacecraft in combination with the images of the dust environment acquired by the OSIRIS cameras allows one to test different hypotheses about the origin of the dust and gas emissions. In addition the orbital elements and the rotation axis and spin rate of the nucleus are affected by the gas release.

Description: The Moon as our nearest celestial object is one of the most important bodies for space resource exploration and planetary science. However, knowledge of the physical properties of the lunar regolith is required for the exploitation of lunar resources and for understanding the Moon's geologic history. This knowledge comes mainly from Apollo in-situ experiments and returned samples, but the global distribution of these properties is still poorly understood. Remote sensing measurements offer the opportunity to derive properties of unsampled areas with the help of models. In our study, a microphysical thermal model for the lunar regolith was developed and the simulated surface temperatures were compared with thermal emission measurements from the Diviner radiometer on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to derive regolith properties. This work expands upon previous investigations of lunar regolith properties using Diviner data, by more directly simulating physical properties such as particle size and porosity.

Description: Recently developed Concentric Tube Continuum Robots (CTCRs) are widely exploited in, for example in minimally invasive surgeries which involve navigating inside narrow body cavities close to sensitive regions. These CTCRs can be controlled by extending and rotating the tubes in order to reach a target point or perform some task. The robot must deviate as little as possible from this narrow space and avoid damaging neighbouring tissue. We consider \emph{open-loop} optimal control of CTCRs parameterized over pseudo-time, primarily aiming at minimizing the robot's working volume during its motion. External loads acting on the system like tip loads or contact with tissues are not considered here. We also discussed the inclusion of tip's orientation in the optimal framework to perform some tasks. We recall a quaternion-based formulation of the robot configuration, discuss discretization, develop optimization objectives addressing different criteria, and investigate their impact on robot path planning for several numerical examples. This optimal framework can be applied to any backbone based continuum robots.

Description: Image segmentation is an active area of research for more than 30 years. Traditional image segmentation algorithms are problem-specific and limited in scope. On the other hand, machine learning offers an alternative paradigm where predefined features are combined into different classifiers, providing pixel-level classification and segmentation. However, machine learning only can not address the question as to which features are appropriate for a certain classification problem. This paper presents a project supported in part by the International Neuroinformatics Coordination Facility through the Google Summer of code. The project resulted in an automated image segmentation and classification platform, called Active Segmentation for ImageJ (AS/IJ). The platform integrates a set of filters computing differential geometrical invariants and combines them with machine learning approaches.

Description: Agent-based epidemiological models have been applied widely successfully during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and assisted policymakers in assessing the effectiveness of intervention strategies. The computational complexity of agent-based models is still challenging, and therefore it is important to utilize modern multi-core systems as good as possible. In this paper, we are presenting our work on parallelizing the epidemiological simulation model MATSim Episim. Episim combines a large-scale person-centric human mobility model with a mechanistic model of infection and a person-centric disease progression model. In general, the parallelization of agent-based models with an inherent sequential structure — in the case of epidemiological models, the temporal order of the individual movements of the agents — is challenging. Especially when the underlying social network is irregular and dynamic, they require frequent communication between the processing elements. In Episim, however, we were able to take advantage of the fact that people are not contagious on the same day they become infected, and therefore immediate health synchronization is not required. By parallelizing some of the most computationally intensive submodels, we are now able to run MATSim Episim simulations up to eight times faster than the serial version. This makes it feasible to increase the number of agents, e.g. to run simulations for the whole of Germany instead of just Berlin as before.

Description: \def\Bbb{\mathbb} For Gorenstein quotient spaces $\Bbb{C}^d/G$, a direct generalization of the classical McKay correspondence in dimensions $d\geq 4$ would primarily demand the existence of projective, crepant desingularizations. Since this turned out to be not always possible, Reid asked about special classes of such quotient spaces which would satisfy the above property. We prove that the underlying spaces of all Gorenstein abelian quotient singularities, which are embeddable as complete intersections of hypersurfaces in an affine space, have torus-equivariant projective crepant resolutions in all dimensions. We use techniques from toric and discrete geometry.

Description: We investigate the potential and limits of interior point based cutting plane algorithms for semidefinite relaxations on basis of implementations for max-cut and quadratic 0-1 knapsack problems. Since the latter has not been described before we present the algorithm in detail and include numerical results.

Description: \def\KukaRob {{\sf KUKA IR\,761}} {\small Industrial robots have greatly enhanced the performance of automated manufacturing processes during the last decades. International competition, however, creates an increasing demand to further improve both the accuracy of off-line programming and the resulting cycle times on production lines. To meet these objectives, validated dynamic robot models are required. We describe in detail the development of a generic dynamic model, specialize it to an actual industrial robot \KukaRob, and discuss the problem of dynamic calibration. Efficient and robust trajectory optimization algorithms are then presented which, when integrated into a CAD system, are suitable for routine application in an industrial environment. Our computational results for the \KukaRob\ robot performing a real life transport maneuver show that considerable gains in productivity can be achieved by minimizing the cycle time.}

Description: Expected recourse functions in linear two-stage stochastic programs with mixed-integer second stage are approximated by estimating the underlying probability distribution via empirical measures. Under mild conditions, almost sure uniform convergence of the empirical means to the original expected recourse function is established.

Description: We present a new technique for generating surface meshes from a uniform set of discrete samples. Our method extends the well-known marching cubes algorithm used for computing polygonal isosurfaces. While in marching cubes each vertex of a cubic grid cell is binary classified as lying above or below an isosurface, in our approach an arbitrary number of vertex classes can be specified. Consequently the resulting surfaces consist of patches separating volumes of two different classes each. Similar to the marching cubes algorithm all grid cells are traversed and classified according to the number of different vertex classes involved and their arrangement. The solution for each configuration is computed based on a model that assigns probabilities to the vertices and interpolates them. We introduce an automatic method to find a triangulation which approximates the boundary surfaces - implicitly given by our model - in a topological correct way. Look-up tables guarantee a high performance of the algorithm. In medical applications our method can be used to extract surfaces from a 3D segmentation of tomographic images into multiple tissue types. The resulting surfaces are well suited for subsequent volumetric mesh generation, which is needed for simulation as well as visualization tasks. The proposed algorithm provides a robust and unique solution, avoiding ambiguities occuring in other methods. The method is of great significance in modeling and animation too, where it can be used for polygonalization of non-manifold implicit surfaces.

Description: {\small Zeilberger's algorithm provides a method to compute recurrence and differential equations from given hypergeometric series representations, and an adaption of Almquist and Zeilberger computes recurrence and differential equations for hyperexponential integrals. Further versions of this algorithm allow the computation of recurrence and differential equations from Rodrigues type formulas and from generating functions. In particular, these algorithms can be used to compute the differential/difference and recurrence equations for the classical continuous and discrete orthogonal polynomials from their hypergeometric representations, and from their Rodrigues representations and generating functions. In recent work, we used an explicit formula for the recurrence equation of families of classical continuous and discrete orthogonal polynomials, in terms of the coefficients of their differential/difference equations, to give an algorithm to identify the polynomial system from a given recurrence equation. In this article we extend these results be presenting a collection of algorithms with which any of the conversions between the differential/difference equation, the hypergeometric representation, and the recurrence equation is possible. The main technique is again to use explicit formulas for structural identities of the given polynomial systems.}

Description: \noindent In molecular dynamics applications there is a growing interest in so-called {\em mixed quantum-classical} models. These models describe most atoms of the molecular system by the means of classical mechanics but an important, small portion of the system by the means of quantum mechanics. A particularly extensively used model, the QCMD model, consists of a {\em singularly perturbed}\/ Schrödinger equation nonlinearly coupled to a classical Newtonian equation of motion. This paper studies the singular limit of the QCMD model for finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. The main result states that this limit is given by the time-dependent Born-Oppenheimer model of quantum theory---provided the Hamiltonian under consideration has a smooth spectral decomposition. This result is strongly related to the {\em quantum adiabatic theorem}. The proof uses the method of {\em weak convergence} by directly discussing the density matrix instead of the wave functions. This technique avoids the discussion of highly oscillatory phases. On the other hand, the limit of the QCMD model is of a different nature if the spectral decomposition of the Hamiltonian happens not to be smooth. We will present a generic example for which the limit set is not a unique trajectory of a limit dynamical system but rather a {\em funnel} consisting of infinitely many trajectories.

Description: This paper introduces a scheme of deriving strong cutting planes for a general integer programming problem. The scheme is related to Chvatal-Gomory cutting planes and important special cases such as odd hole and clique inequalities for the stable set polyhedron or families of inequalities for the knapsack polyhedron. We analyze how relations between covering and incomparability numbers associated with the matrix can be used to bound coefficients in these inequalities. For the intersection of several knapsack polyhedra, incomparabilities between the column vectors of the associated matrix will be shown to transfer into inequalities of the associated polyhedron. Our scheme has been incorporated into the mixed integer programming code SIP. About experimental results will be reported.

Description: Increasing demands on industrial robot operation call for optimal motion planning based on dynamic models. The resulting mathematical problems can be handled efficiently by sparse direct boundary value problem methods. Within this framework we propose a new solution technique that is closely related to the conventional kinematic approach: it eliminates the need for numerical integration of differential equations. First optimization results on a real life transport maneuver demonstrate that the technique may save over 50\,\%\ computation time.

Description: A mixed hypergraph ${\cal H}=(X,{\cal A},{\cal E})$ consists of the vertex set $X$ and two families of subsets: the family of edges ${\cal E}$ and the family of co-edges ${\cal A}$. In a coloring every edge $E \in {\cal E}$ has at least two vertices of different colors, while every co-edge $A \in {\cal A}$ has at least two vertices of the same color. The smallest (largest) number of colors for which there exists a coloring of a mixed hypergraph $\cal H$ using all the colors is called the lower (upper) chromatic number and is denoted $\chi ({\cal H})$ $(\bar {\chi} ({\cal H}) )$. A mixed hypergraph is called uncolorable if it admits no coloring. \par We show that there exist uncolorable mixed hypergraphs ${\cal H}=$ $(X, {\cal A}, {\cal E})$ with arbitrary difference between the upper chromatic number $\bar{\chi } ({\cal H}_{\cal A}) $ of ${\cal H}_{\cal A}=(X,{\cal A})$ and the lower chromatic number ${\chi }({\cal H}_{\cal E})$ of ${\cal H}_{\cal E}=(X,{\cal E}).$ Moreover, for any $k=\bar \chi ({\cal H}_{\cal A})- \chi ({\cal H}_{\cal E})$, the minimum number $v(k)$ of vertices of an inclusionwise minimal uncolorable mixed hypergraph is exactly $k+4.$ \par We introduce the measure of uncolorability which is called the vertex uncolorability number and propose a greedy algorithm that finds an estimate on it, and is a mixed hypergraph coloring heuristic at the same time. \par We show that the colorability problem can be expressed as an integer linear programming problem. \par Concerning particular cases, we describe those complete $(l,m)$-uniform mixed hypergraphs which are uncolorable, and observe that for given $(l,m)$ almost all complete $(l,m)$-uniform mixed hypergraphs are uncolorable, whereas generally almost all complete mixed hypergraphs are colorable.

Description: We present a self--adaptive finite element method to solve combustion problems in 1D, 2D, and 3D. An implicit time integrator of Rosenbrock type is coupled with a multilevel approach in space. A posteriori error estimates are obtained by constructing locally higher order solutions involving all variables of the problem. Adaptive strategies such as step size control, spatial refinement and coarsening allow us to get economically an accurate solution. Various examples are presented to demonstrate practical applications of the proposed method.

Description: Let $G$ be a finite subgroup of SL$\left( r,% {\mathbb{C}}\right) $. In dimensions $r=2$ and $r=3$, McKay correspondence provides a natural bijection between the set of irreducible representations of $G$ and a cohomology-ring basis of the overlying space of a projective, crepant desingularization of ${\mathbb{C}}^r/G$. For $r=2$ this desingularization is unique and is known to be determined by the Hilbert scheme of the $G$% -orbits. Similar statements (including a method of distinguishing just {\it{one}} among all possible smooth minimal models of ${\mathbb{C}}^3/G$), are very probably true for all $G$'s $\subset $ SL$\left( 3,{\mathbb{C}}\right) $ too, and recent Hilbert-scheme-techniques due to Ito, Nakamura and Reid, are expected to lead to a new fascinating uniform theory. For dimensions $r\geq 4 $, however, to apply analogous techniques one needs extra modifications. In addition, minimal models of ${\mathbb{C}}^r/G$ are smooth only under special circumstances. ${\mathbb{C}}^4/\left( \hbox{\rm involution}\right) $, for instance, cannot have any smooth minimal model. On the other hand, all abelian quotient spaces which are c.i.'s can always be fully resolved by torus-equivariant, crepant, projective morphisms. Hence, from the very beginning, the question whether a given Gorenstein quotient space ${\mathbb{C}}% ^r/G$, $r\geq 4$, admits special desingularizations of this kind, seems to be absolutely crucial.\noindent In the present paper, after a brief introduction to the existence-problem of such desingularizations (for abelian $G$'s) from the point of view of toric geometry, we prove that the Gorenstein cyclic quotient singularities of type \[ \frac 1l\,\left( 1,\ldots ,1,l-\left( r-1\right) \right) \] with $l\geq r\geq 2$, have a \textit{unique }torus-equivariant projective, crepant, partial resolution, which is full'' iff either $l\equiv 0$ mod $% \left( r-1\right) $ or $l\equiv 1$ mod $\left( r-1\right) $. As it turns out, if one of these two conditions is fulfilled, then the exceptional locus of the full desingularization consists of $\lfloor\frac{l}{r-1} \rfloor $ prime divisors, $\lfloor\frac{l}{r-1} \rfloor -1$ of which are isomorphic to the total spaces of ${\mathbb{P}}_{{\mathbb{C}}}^1$-bundles over ${\mathbb{P}}_{{\mathbb{C}}% }^{r-2}$. Moreover, it is shown that intersection numbers are computable explicitly and that the resolution morphism can be viewed as a composite of successive (normalized) blow-ups. Obviously, the monoparametrized singularity-series of the above type contains (as its first member'') the well-known Gorenstein singularity defined by the origin of the affine cone which lies over the $r$-tuple Veronese embedding of ${\mathbb{P}}_{\mathbb{C}}^{r-1}$.

Description: We describe an extension of the line integral convolution method (LIC) for imaging of vector fields on arbitrary surfaces in 3D space. Previous approaches were limited to curvilinear surfaces, i.e.~surfaces which can be parametrized globally using 2D-coordinates. By contrast our method also handles the case of general, possibly multiply connected surfaces. The method works by tesselating a given surface with triangles. For each triangle local euclidean coordinates are defined and a local LIC texture is computed. No scaling or distortion is involved when mapping the texture onto the surface. The characteristic length of the texture remains constant. In order to exploit the texture hardware of modern graphics computers we have developed a tiling strategy for arranging a large number of triangular texture pieces within a single rectangular texture image. In this way texture memory is utilized optimally and even large textured surfaces can be explored interactively.

Description: A new technique for interactive vector field visualization using large numbers of properly illuminated field lines is presented. Taking into account ambient, diffuse, and specular reflection terms as well as transparency and depth cueing, we employ a realistic shading model which significantly increases quality and realism of the resulting images. While many graphics workstations offer hardware support for illuminating surface primitives, usually no means for an accurate shading of line primitives are provided. However, we show that proper illumination of lines can be implemented by exploiting the texture mapping capabilities of modern graphics hardware. In this way high rendering performance with interactive frame rates can be achieved. We apply the technique to render large numbers of integral curves of a vector field. The impression of the resulting images can be further improved by a number of visual enhancements, like transparency and depth-cueing. We also describe methods for controlling the distribution of field lines in space. These methods enable us to use illuminated field lines for interactive exploration of vector fields.

Description: The asymmetric travelling salesman problem with time windows (ATSP-TW) is a basic model for scheduling and routing applications. In this paper we present a formulation of the problem involving only 0/1-variables associated with the arcs of the underlying digraph. This has the advantage of avoiding additional variables as well as the associated (typically very ineffective) linking constraints. In the formulation, time window restrictions are modelled by means of ``infeasible path elimination'' constraints. We present the basic form of these constraints along with some possible strengthenings. Several other classes of valid inequalities derived from related asymmetric travelling salesman problems are also described, along with a lifting theorem. We also study the ATSP-TW polytope, $P_{TW}$, defined as the convex hull of the integer solutions of our model. We show that determining the dimension of $P_{TW}$ is strongly {\em NP}--complete problem, even if only one time window is present. In this latter case, we provide a minimal equation system for $P_{TW}$. Computational experiments on the new formulation are reported in a companion paper [1997] where we show that it outperforms alternative formulations on some classes of problem instances.

Description: In this paper we investigate whether matrices arising from linear or integer programming problems can be decomposed into so-called {\em bordered block diagonal form}. More precisely, given some matrix $A$, we try to assign as many rows as possible to some number of blocks of limited size such that no two rows assigned to different blocks intersect in a common column. Bordered block diagonal form is desirable because it can guide and speed up the solution process for linear and integer programming problems. We show that various matrices from the %LP- and MIP-libraries \Netlib{} and MIPLIB can indeed be decomposed into this form by computing optimal decompositions or decompositions with proven quality. These computations are done with a branch-and-cut algorithm based on polyhedral investigations of the matrix decomposition problem.

Description: In this paper we present a self--adaptive finite element method to solve flame propagation problems in 3D. An implicit time integrator of Rosenbrock type is coupled with a multilevel approach in space. The proposed method is applied to an unsteady thermo--diffusive combustion model to demonstrate its potential for the solution of complicated problems.

Description: The paper is concerned with the analysis of an $s$ server queueing system in which the calls become impatient and leave the system if their waiting time exceeds their own patience. The individual patience times are assumed to be i.i.d.\ and arbitrary distributed. The arrival and service rate may depend on the number of calls in the system and in service, respectively. For this system, denoted by $M(n)/M(m)/s+GI$, where $m=\min(n,s)$ is the number of busy servers in the system, we derive a system of integral equations for the vector of the residual patience times of the waiting calls and their original maximal patience times. By solving these equations explicitly we get the stability condition and, for the steady state of the system, the occupancy distribution and various waiting time distributions. As an application of the \mbox{$M(n)/M(m)/s+GI$} system we give a performance analysis of an Automatic Call Distributor system (ACD system) of finite capacity with outbound calls and impatient inbound calls, especially in case of patience times being the minimum of constant and exponentially distributed times.

Description: During the last years the interest in the numerical simulation of reacting flows has grown considerably and numerical methods are available, which allow to couple chemical kinetics with flow and molecular transport. The use of detailed physical and chemical models, involving several hundred species, is restricted to very simple flow configurations like one-dimensional systems or two-dimensional systems with very simple geometries, and models are required, which simplify chemistry without sacrificing accuracy. One method to simplify the chemical kinetics is based on Intrinsic Low-Dimensional Manifolds (ILDM). They present attractors for the chemical kinetics, i.e. fast chemical processes relax towards them, and slow chemical processes represent movements within the manifolds. Thus the identification of the ILDMs allows a decoupling of the fast time scales. The concept has been verified by many different reacting flow calculations. However, one remaining problem of the method is the efficient calculation of the low-dimensional manifolds. This problem is addressed in this paper. We present an efficient, robust method, which allows to calculate intrinsic low-dimensional manifolds of chemical reaction systems. It is based on a multi-dimensional continuation process. Examples are shown for a typical combustion system. The method is not restricted to this class, but can be applied to other chemical systems, too.

Description: Given a communication demand between each pair of nodes of a network we consider the problem of deciding what capacity to install on each edge of the network in order to minimize the building cost of the network and to satisfy the demand between each pair of nodes. The feasible capacities that can be leased from a network provider are of a particular kind in our case. There are a few so-called basic capacities having the property that every basic capacity is an integral multiple of every smaller basic capacity. An edge can be equipped with a capacity only if it is an integer combination of the basic capacities. We treat, in addition, several restrictions on the routings of the demands (length restriction, diversification) and failures of single nodes or single edges. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer linear programming problem and develop a cutting plane algorithm as well as several heuristics to solve it. We report on computational results for real world data.

Description: We present a mathematical formulation of a \emph{frequency assignment problem} encountered in cellular phone networks: frequencies have to be assigned to stationary transceivers (carriers) such that as little interference as possible is induced while obeying several technical and legal restrictions. The optimization problem is NP-hard, and no good approximation can be guaranteed---unless P = NP. We sketch some starting and improvement heuristics, and report on their successful application for solving the frequency assignment problem under consideration. Computational results on real-world instances with up to 2877 carriers and 50 frequencies are presented.

Description: This paper is about {\em set packing relaxations\/} of combinatorial optimization problems associated with acyclic digraphs and linear orderings, cuts and multicuts, and vertex packings themselves. Families of inequalities that are valid for such a relaxation as well as the associated separation routines carry over to the problems under investigation.

Description: We survey the literature on those variants of the {\em chromatic number\/} problem where not only a proper coloring has to be found (i.e., adjacent vertices must not receive the same color) but some further local restrictions are imposed on the color assignment. Mostly, the {\em list colorings\/} and the {\em precoloring extensions\/} are considered. \par In one of the most general formulations, a graph $G=(V,E)$, sets $L(v)$ of admissible colors, and natural numbers $c_v$ for the vertices $v\in V$ are given, and the question is whether there can be chosen a subset $C(v)\subseteq L(v)$ of cardinality $c_v$ for each vertex in such a way that the sets $C(v),C(v')$ are disjoint for each pair $v,v'$ of adjacent vertices. The particular case of constant $|L(v)|$ with $c_v=1$ for all $v\in V$ leads to the concept of {\em choice number}, a graph parameter showing unexpectedly different behavior compared to the chromatic number, despite these two invariants have nearly the same value for almost all graphs. \par To illustrate typical techniques, some of the proofs are sketched.

Description: A graph $G$ is called preperfect if each induced subgraph $G' \subseteq G$ of order at least 2 has two vertices $x,y$ such that either all maximum cliques of $G'$ containing $x$ contain $y$, or all maximum indepentent sets of $G'$ containing $y$ contain $x$, too. Giving a partial answer to a problem of Hammer and Maffray [Combinatorica 13 (1993), 199-208], we describe new classes of minimally non-preperfect graphs, and prove the following characterizations: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] A graph of maximum degree 4 is minimally non-preperfect if and only if it is an odd cycle of length at least 5, or the complement of a cycle of length 7, or the line graph of a 3-regular 3-connected bipartite graph. \item[(ii)] If a graph $G$ is not an odd cycle and has no isolated vertices, then its line graph is minimally non-preperfect if and only if $G$ is bipartite, 3-edge-connected, regular of degree $d$ for some $d \ge 3$, and contains no 3-edge-connected $d'$-regular subgraph for any $3 \le d' \le d$. \end{itemize}

Description: A (vertex) $k$-ranking of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a mapping $ p:V\to \{1,\dots,k\}$ such that each path with endvertices of the same color $i$ contains an internal vertex of color $\ge i+1$. In the on-line coloring algorithms, the vertices $v_1,\dots,v_n$ arrive one by one in an unrestricted order, and only the edges inside the set $\{v_1,\dots,v_i\}$ are known when the color of $v_i$ has to be chosen. We characterize those graphs for which a 3-ranking can be found on-line. We also prove that the greedy (First-Fit) on-line algorithm, assigning the smallest feasible color to the next vertex at each step, generates a $(3\log_2 n)$-ranking for the path with $n \geq 2$ vertices, independently of the order in which the vertices are received.

Description: In our previous work [Preprint SC 97-48] we have studied natural mechanical systems on Riemannian manifolds with a strong constraining potential. These systems establish fast nonlinear oscillations around some equilibrium manifold. Important in applications, the problem of elimination of the fast degrees of freedom, or {\em homogenization in time}, leads to determine the singular limit of infinite strength of the constraining potential. In the present paper we extend this study to systems which are subject to external forces that are non-potential, depending in a mixed way on positions {\em and}\/ velocities. We will argue that the method of weak convergence used in [1997] covers such forces if and only if they result from viscous friction and gyroscopic terms. All the results of [1997] directly extend if there is no friction transversal to the equilibrium manifold; elsewise we show that instructive modifications apply.

Description: In this paper we consider a variant of the classical ATSP, namely the asymmetric Hamiltonian path problem (or equivalently ATSP) with precedence constraints. In this problem precedences among the nodes are present, stating that a certain node has to precede others in any feasible sequence. This problem occurs as a basic model in scheduling and routing and has a wide range of applications varying from helicopter routing[Timlin89], sequencing in flexible manufacturing [AscheuerEscuderoGroetschelStoer90,AscheuerEscuderoGroetschelStoer93], to stacker crane routing in an automatic storage system[Ascheuer95]. We give an integer programming model and summarize known classes of valid inequalities. We describe in detail the implementation of a branch&-cut algorithm and give computational results on real world instances and benchmark problems from TSPLIB. The results we achieve indicate that our implementation outperforms other implementations found in the literature. Real world instances up to 174 nodes could be solved to optimality within a few minutes of CPU-time. As a side product we obtained a branch&cut-algorithm for the ATSP. All instances in TSPLIB could be solved to optimality in a reasonable amount of computing time.

Description: Scientific visualization is a rapidly growing research field with a need for information dissemination. This report describes the Electronic Visualization Library (EVlib), a digital library for scientific visualization. Main design goals of EVlib were an attractive user interface providing various kind of access mechanisms as well as an open interface to other already established information systems. EVlib stores fulltext versions of documents where they are available. We also provide access to BibTeX entries for every stored document. All available BibTeX entries are combined in BibTeX bibliographies which are registered with the ``Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies'' at University of Karlsruhe. Additionally, we have defined a mapping from BibTeX attributes to the Dublin Core attribute set. This mapping is used to provide a gatherer interface for the Harvest information system. This way, existing Harvest installations can immediately use EVlib as an information resource.