No Arabic abstract
We study three orientation-based shape descriptors on a set of continuously moving points: the first principal component, the smallest oriented bounding box and the thinnest strip. Each of these shape descriptors essentially defines a cost capturing the quality of the descriptor and uses the orientation that minimizes the cost. This optimal orientation may be very unstable as the points are moving, which is undesirable in many practical scenarios. If we bound the speed with which the orientation of the descriptor may change, this may lower the quality of the resulting shape descriptor. In this paper we study the trade-off between stability and quality of these shape descriptors. We first show that there is no stateless algorithm, an algorithm that keeps no state over time, that both approximates the minimum cost of a shape descriptor and achieves continuous motion for the shape descriptor. On the other hand, if we can use the previous state of the shape descriptor to compute the new state, we can define chasing algorithms that attempt to follow the optimal orientation with bounded speed. We show that, under mild conditions, chasing algorithms with sufficient bounded speed approximate the optimal cost at all times for oriented bounding boxes and strips. The analysis of such chasing algorithms is challenging and has received little attention in literature, hence we believe that our methods used in this analysis are of independent interest.
We study the $k$-center problem in a kinetic setting: given a set of continuously moving points $P$ in the plane, determine a set of $k$ (moving) disks that cover $P$ at every time step, such that the disks are as small as possible at any point in time. Whereas the optimal solution over time may exhibit discontinuous changes, many practical applications require the solution to be stable: the disks must move smoothly over time. Existing results on this problem require the disks to move with a bounded speed, but this model allows positive results only for $k<3$. Hence, the results are limited and offer little theoretical insight. Instead, we study the topological stability of $k$-centers. Topological stability was recently introduced and simply requires the solution to change continuously, but may do so arbitrarily fast. We prove upper and lower bounds on the ratio between the radii of an optimal but unstable solution and the radii of a topologically stable solution -- the topological stability ratio -- considering various metrics and various optimization criteria. For $k = 2$ we provide tight bounds, and for small $k > 2$ we can obtain nontrivial lower and upper bounds. Finally, we provide an algorithm to compute the topological stability ratio in polynomial time for constant $k$.
In this paper, we present a systematic stability analysis of the quadrature-based moment method (QBMM) for the one-dimensional Boltzmann equation with BGK or Shakhov models. As reported in recent literature, the method has revealed its potential for modeling non-equilibrium flows, while a thorough theoretical analysis is largely missing but desirable. We show that the method can yield non-hyperbolic moment systems if the distribution function is approximated by a linear combination of $delta$-functions. On the other hand, if the $delta$-functions are replaced by their Gaussian approximations with a common variance, we prove that the moment systems are strictly hyperbolic and preserve the dissipation property (or $H$-theorem) of the kinetic equation. In the proof we also determine the equilibrium manifold that lies on the boundary of the state space. The proofs are quite technical and involve detailed analyses of the characteristic polynomials of the coefficient matrices.
One of the main discoveries from the first two orbits of Parker Solar Probe (PSP) was the presence of magnetic switchbacks, whose deflections dominated the magnetic field measurements. Determining their shape and size could provide evidence of their origin, which is still unclear. Previous work with a single solar wind stream has indicated that these are long, thin structures although the direction of their major axis could not be determined. We investigate if this long, thin nature extends to other solar wind streams, while determining the direction along which the switchbacks within a stream were aligned. We try to understand how the size and orientation of the switchbacks, along with the flow velocity and spacecraft trajectory, combine to produce the observed structure durations for past and future orbits. We searched for the alignment direction that produced a combination of a spacecraft cutting direction and switchback duration that was most consistent with long, thin structures. The expected form of a long, thin structure was fitted to the results of the best alignment direction, which determined the width and aspect ratio of the switchbacks for that stream. The switchbacks had a mean width of $50,000 , rm{km}$, with an aspect ratio of the order of $10$. We find that switchbacks are not aligned along the background flow direction, but instead aligned along the local Parker spiral, perhaps suggesting that they propagate along the magnetic field. Since the observed switchback duration depends on how the spacecraft cuts through the structure, the duration alone cannot be used to determine the size or influence of an individual event. For future PSP orbits, a larger spacecraft transverse component combined with more radially aligned switchbacks will lead to long duration switchbacks becoming less common.
The aim of the article is to study the stability of a non-local kinetic model proposed by Loy and Preziosi (2019a). We split the population in two subgroups and perform a linear stability analysis. We show that pattern formation results from modulation of one non-dimensional parameter that depends on the tumbling frequency, the sensing radius, the mean speed in a given direction, the uniform configuration density and the tactic response to the cell density. Numerical simulations show that our linear stability analysis predicts quite precisely the ranges of parameters determining instability and pattern formation. We also extend the stability analysis in the case of different mean speeds in different directions. In this case, for parameter values leading to instability travelling wave patterns develop.
This paper studies empty squares in arbitrary orientation among a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane. We prove that the number of empty squares with four contact pairs is between $Omega(n)$ and $O(n^2)$, and that these bounds are tight, provided $P$ is in a certain general position. A contact pair of a square is a pair of a point $pin P$ and a side $ell$ of the square with $pin ell$. The upper bound $O(n^2)$ also applies to the number of empty squares with four contact points, while we construct a point set among which there is no square of four contact points. These combinatorial results are based on new observations on the $L_infty$ Voronoi diagram with the axes rotated and its close connection to empty squares in arbitrary orientation. We then present an algorithm that maintains a combinatorial structure of the $L_infty$ Voronoi diagram of $P$, while the axes of the plane continuously rotates by $90$ degrees, and simultaneously reports all empty squares with four contact pairs among $P$ in an output-sensitive way within $O(slog n)$ time and $O(n)$ space, where $s$ denotes the number of reported squares. Several new algorithmic results are also obtained: a largest empty square among $P$ and a square annulus of minimum width or minimum area that encloses $P$ over all orientations can be computed in worst-case $O(n^2 log n)$ time.