modeling uncertainty in steady state diffusion problems via generalized polynomial chaos abstract we present a generalized polynomial chaos algorithm for the solution of stochastic elliptic partial differential equations subject to uncertain inputs in particular we focus on the solution of the poisson equation with random diffusivity forcing and boundary conditions the stochastic input and solution are represented spectrally by employing the orthogonal polynomial functionals from the askey scheme as a generalization of the original polynomial chaos idea of wiener amer j math 60 1938 897 a galerkin projection in random space is applied to derive the equations in the weak form the resulting set of deterministic equations for each random mode is solved iteratively by a block gauss seidel iteration technique both discrete and continuous random distributions are considered and convergence is verified in model problems and against monte carlo simulations

is gauss quadrature better than clenshaw curtis we compare the convergence behavior of gauss quadrature with that of its younger brother clenshaw curtis seven line matlab codes are presented that implement both methods and experiments show that the supposed factor of 2 advantage of gauss quadrature is rarely realized theorems are given to explain this effect first following o hara and smith in the 1960s the phenomenon is explained as a consequence of aliasing of coefficients in chebyshev expansions then another explanation is offered based on the interpretation of a quadrature formula as a rational approximation of log z 1 z 1 in the complex plane gauss quadrature corresponds to pade approximation at z infty clenshaw curtis quadrature corresponds to an approximation whose order of accuracy at z infty is only half as high but which is nevertheless equally accurate near 1 1

solving elliptic boundary value problems with uncertain coefficients by the finite element method the stochastic formulation this work studies a linear elliptic problem with uncertainty the introduction gives a survey of different formulations of the uncertainty and resulting numerical approximations the major emphasis

uncertainty propagation using wiener haar expansions an uncertainty quantification scheme is constructed based on generalized polynomial chaos pc representations two such representations are considered based on the orthogonal projection of uncertain data and solution variables using either a haar or a legendre basis governing equations for the unknown coefficients in the resulting representations are derived using a galerkin procedure and then integrated in order to determine the behavior of the stochastic process the schemes are applied to a model problem involving a simplified dynamical system and to the classical problem of rayleigh benard instability for situations involving random parameters close to a critical point the computational implementations show that the wiener haar wha representation provides more robust predictions that those based on a wiener legendre wle decomposition however when the solution depends smoothly on the random data the wle scheme exhibits superior convergence suggestions regarding future extensions are finally drawn based on these experiences

a multiscale preconditioner for stochastic mortar mixed finite elements the aim of this paper is to introduce a new approach to efficiently solve sequences of problems that typically arise when modeling flow in stochastic porous media the governing equations are based on darcy s law with a stochastic permeability field starting from a specified covariance relationship the log permeability is decomposed using a truncated karhunen loeve expansion multiscale mortar mixed finite element approximations are used in the spatial domain and a nonintrusive sampling method is used in the stochastic dimensions a multiscale mortar flux basis is computed for a single permeability called a training permeability that captures the main characteristics of the porous media and is used as a preconditioner for each stochastic realization we prove that the condition number of the preconditioned interface operator is independent of the subdomain mesh size and the mortar mesh size computational results confirm that our approach provides an efficient means to quantify the uncertainty for stochastic flow in porous media

affine geometry curve flows and invariant numerical approximations abstract a new geometric approach to the affine geometry of curves in the plane and to affine invariant curve shortening is presented we describe methods of approximating the affine curvature with discrete finite difference approximations based on a general theory of approximating differential invariants of lie group actions by joint invariants applications to computer vision are indicated

improved estimation of hyperbolic frequency modulated chirp signals this article deals with parameter estimation of product signals consisting of hyperbolic fm and chirp factors a computationally simple algorithm that decouples estimation of the chirp parameters from those of the hyperbolic fm part is presented it relies on a simple data transformation that removes the hyperbolic fm component leaving one with the simpler problem of estimating chirp parameters for the latter the high order ambiguity function haf is adopted schemes for estimating the hyperbolic fm parameter are also proposed the method improves on existing approaches and is shown to provide performance close to the cramer rao bound

high order collocation methods for differential equations with random inputs recently there has been a growing interest in designing efficient methods for the solution of ordinary partial differential equations with random inputs to this end stochastic galerkin methods appear to be superior to other nonsampling methods and in many cases to several sampling methods however when the governing equations take complicated forms numerical implementations of stochastic galerkin methods can become nontrivial and care is needed to design robust and efficient solvers for the resulting equations on the other hand the traditional sampling methods e g monte carlo methods are straightforward to implement but they do not offer convergence as fast as stochastic galerkin methods in this paper a high order stochastic collocation approach is proposed similar to stochastic galerkin methods the collocation methods take advantage of an assumption of smoothness of the solution in random space to achieve fast convergence however the numerical implementation of stochastic collocation is trivial as it requires only repetitive runs of an existing deterministic solver similar to monte carlo methods the computational cost of the collocation methods depends on the choice of the collocation points and we present several feasible constructions one particular choice based on sparse grids depends weakly on the dimensionality of the random space and is more suitable for highly accurate computations of practical applications with large dimensional random inputs numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the stochastic collocation methods

differential and numerically invariant signature curves applied to object recognition we introduce a new paradigm the differential invariant signature curve or manifold for the invariant recognition of visual objects a general theorem of e cartan implies that two curves are related by a group transformation if and only if their signature curves are identical the important examples of the euclidean and equi affine groups are discussed in detail secondly we show how a new approach to the numerical approximation of differential invariants based on suitable combination of joint invariants of the underlying group action allows one to numerically compute differential invariant signatures in a fully group invariant manner applications to a variety of fundamental issues in vision including detection of symmetries visual tracking and reconstruction of occlusions are discussed

on the computation of the affine skeletons of planar curves and the detection of skew symmetry abstract in this paper we discuss a new approach to compute discrete skeletons of planar shapes which is based on affine distances being therefore affine invariant the method works with generic curves that may contain concave sections a dynamical interpretation of the affine skeleton construction based on curve evolution is discussed as well we propose an efficient implementation of the method and give examples we also demonstrate how to use this method to detect affine skew symmetry in real images

solution of stochastic partial differential equations using galerkin finite element techniques this paper presents a framework for the construction of galerkin approximations of elliptic boundary value problems with stochastic input data a variational formulation is developed which allows among others numerical treatment by the finite element method a theory of a posteriori error estimation and corresponding adaptive approaches based on practical experience can be utilized the paper develops a foundation for treating stochastic partial differential equations pdes which can be further developed in many directions

nonlocal and localized analyses of conditional mean steady state flow in bounded randomly nonuniform domains 1 theory and computational approach we consider the effect of measuring randomly varying hydraulic conductivitiesk x on one s ability to predict numerically without resorting to either monte carlo simulation or upscaling steady state flow in bounded domains driven by random source and boundary terms our aim is to allow optimum unbiased prediction of hydraulic heads h x and fluxes q x by means of their ensemble moments h x c and q x c respectively conditioned on measurements of k x these predictors have been shown by neuman and orr 1993a to satisfy exactly an integrodifferential conditional mean flow equation in which q x c is nonlocal and non darcian here we develop complementary integrodifferential equations for second conditional moments of head and flux which serve as measures of predictive uncertainty obtain recursive closure approximations for both the first and second conditional moment equations through expansion in powers of a small parameter y which represents the standard estimation error of ln k x and show how to solve these equations to first order in y2 by finite elements on a rectangular grid in two dimensions in the special case where one treats k x as if it was locally homogeneous and mean flow as if it was locally uniform one obtains a localized darcian approximation q x c kc x h x c in which kc x is a space dependent conditional hydraulic conductivity tensor this leads to the traditional deterministic darcian steady state flow equation which however acquires a nontraditional meaning in that its parameters and state variables are data dependent and therefore inherently nonunique it further explains why parameter estimates obtained by traditional inverse methods tend to vary as one modifies the database localized equations yield no information about predictive uncertainty our stochastic derivation of these otherwise standard deterministic flow equations makes clear that uncertainty measures associated with estimates of head and flux obtained by traditional inverse methods are generally smaller often considerably so than measures of corresponding predictive uncertainty which can be assessed only by means of stochastic models such as ours we present a detailed comparison between finite element solutions of nonlocal and localized moment equations and monte carlo simulations under superimposed mean uniform and convergent flow regimes in two dimensions paper 1 presents the theory and computational approach and paper 2 guadagnini and neuman this issue describes unconditional and conditional computational results

on solving elliptic stochastic partial differential equations abstract a model elliptic boundary value problem of second order with stochastic coefficients described by the karhunen loeve expansion is addressed this problem is transformed into an equivalent deterministic one the perturbation method and the method of successive approximations is analyzed rigorous error estimates in the framework of sobolev spaces are given

symmetry reductions and exact solutions of the affine heat equation lie symmetry group method is applied to study the affine heat equation for surface its symmetry groups and corresponding optimal systems are determined and group invariant solutions associated to the symmetries are obtained and classified

the wiener askey polynomial chaos for stochastic differential equations we present a new method for solving stochastic differential equations based on galerkin projections and extensions of wiener s polynomial chaos specifically we represent the stochastic processes with an optimum trial basis from the askey family of orthogonal polynomials that reduces the dimensionality of the system and leads to exponential convergence of the error several continuous and discrete processes are treated and numerical examples show substantial speed up compared to monte carlo simulations for low dimensional stochastic inputs

finite elements for elliptic problems with stochastic coefficients abstract we describe a deterministic finite element fe solution algorithm for a stochastic elliptic boundary value problem sbvp whose coefficients are assumed to be random fields with finite second moments and known piecewise smooth two point spatial correlation function separation of random and deterministic variables parametrization of the uncertainty is achieved via a karhunen loeve kl expansion an o n log n algorithm for the computation of the kl eigenvalues is presented based on a kernel independent fast multipole method fmm truncation of the kl expansion gives an m 1 wiener polynomial chaos pc expansion of the stochastic coefficient and is shown to lead to a high dimensional deterministic boundary value problem dbvp analyticity of its solution in the stochastic variables with sharp bounds for the domain of analyticity are used to prescribe variable stochastic polynomial degree r r1 rm in an m r wiener pc expansion for the approximate solution pointwise error bounds for the fem approximations of kl eigenpairs the truncation of the kl expansion and the fe solution to the dbvp are given numerical examples show that m depends on the spatial correlation length of the random diffusion coefficient the variable polynomial degree r in pc stochastic galerkin fem allows to handle kl expansions with m up to 30 and r1 up to 10 in moderate time

groundwater flow in heterogeneous composite aquifers 1 we introduce a stochastic model of flow through highly heterogeneous composite porous media that greatly improves estimates of pressure head statistics composite porous media consist of disjoint blocks of permeable materials each block comprising a single material type within a composite medium hydraulic conductivity can be represented through a pair of random processes 1 a boundary process that determines block arrangement and extent and 2 a stationary process that defines conductivity within a given block we obtain second order statistics for hydraulic conductivity in the composite model and then contrast them with statistics obtained from a standard univariate model that ignores the boundary process and treats a composite medium as if it were statistically homogeneous next we develop perturbation expansions for the first two moments of head and contrast them with expansions based on the homogeneous approximation in most cases the bivariate model leads to much sharper perturbation approximations than does the usual model of flow through an undifferentiated material when both are applied to highly heterogeneous media we make this statement precise we illustrate the composite model with examples of one dimensional flows which are interesting in their own right and which allow us to compare the accuracy of perturbation approximations of head statistics to exact analytical solutions we also show the boundary process of our bivariate model is equivalent to the indicator functions often used to represent composite media in monte carlo simulations

a sparse grid stochastic collocation method for partial differential equations with random input data this work proposes and analyzes a smolyak type sparse grid stochastic collocation method for the approximation of statistical quantities related to the solution of partial differential equations with random coefficients and forcing terms input data of the model to compute solution statistics the sparse grid stochastic collocation method uses approximate solutions produced here by finite elements corresponding to a deterministic set of points in the random input space this naturally requires solving uncoupled deterministic problems as in the monte carlo method if the number of random variables needed to describe the input data is moderately large full tensor product spaces are computationally expensive to use due to the curse of dimensionality in this case the sparse grid approach is still expected to be competitive with the classical monte carlo method therefore it is of major practical relevance to understand in which situations the sparse grid stochastic collocation method is more efficient than monte carlo this work provides error estimates for the fully discrete solution using l q norms and analyzes the computational efficiency of the proposed method in particular it demonstrates algebraic convergence with respect to the total number of collocation points and quantifies the effect of the dimension of the problem number of input random variables in the final estimates the derived estimates are then used to compare the method with monte carlo indicating for which problems the former is more efficient than the latter computational evidence complements the present theory and shows the effectiveness of the sparse grid stochastic collocation method compared to full tensor and monte carlo approaches

distance functions and geodesics on submanifolds of r d and point clouds a theoretical and computational framework for computing intrinsic distance functions and geodesics on submanifolds of bbb r d given by point clouds is introduced and developed in this paper

galerkin methods for linear and nonlinear elliptic stochastic partial differential equations abstract stationary systems modelled by elliptic partial differential equations linear as well as nonlinear with stochastic coefficients random fields are considered the mathematical setting as a variational problem existence theorems and possible discretisations in particular with respect to the stochastic part are given and investigated with regard to stability different and increasingly sophisticated computational approaches involving both wiener s polynomial chaos as well as the karhunen loeve expansion are addressed in conjunction with stochastic galerkin procedures and stability within the galerkin framework is established new and effective algorithms to compute the mean and covariance of the solution are proposed the similarities and differences with better known monte carlo methods are exhibited as well as alternatives to integration in high dimensional spaces hints are given regarding the numerical implementation and parallelisation numerical examples serve as illustration

galerkin finite element approximations of stochastic elliptic partial differential equations we describe and analyze two numerical methods for a linear elliptic problem with stochastic coefficients and homogeneous dirichlet boundary conditions here the aim of the com putations is to approximate statistical moments of the solution and in particular we give a priori error estimates for the computation of the expected value of the solution the first method gener ates independent identically distributed approximations of the solution by sampling the coefficients of the equation and using a standard galerkin finite element variational formulation the monte carlo method then uses these approximations to compute corresponding sample averages the sec ond method is based on a finite dimensional approximation of the stochastic coefficients turning the original stochastic problem into a deterministic parametric elliptic problem a galerkin finite element method of either the h o rp version then approximates the corresponding deterministic solution yielding approximations of the desired statistics we present a priori error estimates and include a comparison of the computational work required by each numerical approximation to achieve a given accuracy this comparison suggests intuitive conditions for an optimal selection of the numerical approximation

projective evolution of plane curves we show that projectively invariant evolution operators have unavoidable singularities in particular we see that there exists no non singular projective evolution operator well defined over straight lines nor conics

a stochastic collocation method for elliptic partial differential equations with random input data in this paper we propose and analyze a stochastic collocation method to solve elliptic partial differential equations with random coefficients and forcing terms input data of the model the input data are assumed to depend on a finite number of random variables the method consists in a galerkin approximation in space and a collocation in the zeros of suitable tensor product orthogonal polynomials gauss points in the probability space and naturally leads to the solution of uncoupled deterministic problems as in the monte carlo approach it can be seen as a generalization of the stochastic galerkin method proposed in i babuscka r tempone and g e zouraris siam j numer anal 42 2004 pp 800 825 and allows one to treat easily a wider range of situations such as input data that depend nonlinearly on the random variables diffusivity coefficients with unbounded second moments and random variables that are correlated or even unbounded we provide a rigorous convergence analysis and demonstrate exponential convergence of the probability error with respect to the number of gauss points in each direction in the probability space under some regularity assumptions on the random input data numerical examples show the effectiveness of the method