Subject: NA Digest, V. 91, # 41

From: [email-masked] (NA-NET)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 91 11:40:59 -0400

NA Digest   Saturday, October 12, 1991   Volume 91 : Issue 41

Today's Editor: Cleve Moler

Today's Topics:

     New address for June Donato
     Phone Numbers at U. British Columbia
     Bay Area NA Day
     LP Codes and Call for Information
     Adaptive Methods for PDEs
     Information Sought About "Gold Codes" 
     More on Refereeing
     About Journal Refereeing
     More on Breakdown of the Refereeing Process
     Journal of Computational Physics Editors
     SIAM Conference on Optimization
     Workshop in Numerical Ranges and Radii

Submissions for NA Digest: 
    Mail to [email-masked].

Information about NA-NET:
    Mail to [email-masked].

-------------------------------------------------------

From: June Donato <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 15:10:38 EDT
Subject: New address for June Donato

Effective immediately my address is

June M. Donato
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Mathematical Sciences Section, EPM Division
P.O. Box 2008, Building 6012
Oak Ridge, TN  37831-6367

email: [email-masked]  
       [email-masked]

phone: (615) 576-7928    
FAX:   (615) 574-0680

------------------------------

From: Uri Ascher <[email-masked]>
Date: 8 Oct 91 21:19 +0100
Subject: Phone Numbers at U. British Columbia

As of this month, the first 3 digits of phone
numbers at the University of British Columbia
have changed from 228- to 822-
(or UBC -- with the hope that no one will have
 been inconvenienced by this cute idea).
In particular, my office number is  (604) 822-4907
              Computer Science FAX  (604) 822-5485

                              Uri Ascher

------------------------------

From: Alan Edelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 91 16:39:29 PDT
Subject: Bay Area NA Day

        BAY AREA Numerical Analysis DAY at BERKELEY
                    November 16, 1991

There will be a Bay Area NA Day in Berkeley on Sat, Nov 16.  This day
is an opportunity to meet colleagues and students (and also visitors)
in the Bay area.

We are currently ironing out the details of scheduling, but we
anticipate that the first talk will start around 10 (coffee and
munchies before hand) and the last talk will end around 4:30.  The
program will consist of about eight 30 minute talks, most of which
will be given by students, post-docs, and younger faculty.

The evening will end with a Chinese banquet.

Further details will be announced. Stay tuned.
All are welcome. Hope you can come,

                -- Alan Edelman

------------------------------

From: M. J. Saltzman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 91 17:05:47 -0400
Subject: LP Codes and Call for Information

In NA Digest   Sunday, September 15, 1991   Volume 91 : Issue 37,
Kristjan Jonasson <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>I would like to find software (preferably FORTRAN subroutines) for
>solving large sparse linear programming problems.  Ny intention is
>to use these in a research project on nonlinear minimax problems.
>
>Can anyone help me?

and Jerzy Wasniewski <[email-masked]> writes
>
>Does anyone have, or know where I could get, any public domain
>software for Sparse Linear Programming Problem. We need this
>software for the education purpose.
>Thank you in advance.
>
>Best regards,
>             Jerzy

As far as I know there are no PD linear programming codes.  There is a
tableau code (i.e. not sparse) in _Numerical_Recipes_, and there may
be some other toy codes published in other textbooks.  There are
several commercial packages that offer educational discounts.  Some of
these offer either callable libraries or the ability to link to
user-written subroutines.  I don't know if the digest is the place to
discuss the merits of individual packages, but I will be happy to
continue the discussion by e-mail.  Also, a fairly complete list of
commercial LP packages for PCs was published in _OR/MS_Today_, v17#5 
(October 1990).

Questions about optimization software seem to come up frequently,
if not here, certainly on Usenet News.  I have offered on Usenet to
compile a list of optimization codes.  I would like to arrange to
make the list available for electronic distribution over NA-Net,
Usenet or maybe Netlib.  There is some chance that it could be 
published in a forum like _OR/MS_Today_ as well.

If you are the author of an optimization code(*) (and did not respond
to my earlier query on Usenet), and you would like to be included on
such a list, please send me the following information:

1) The name of your product.
2) Your name or the name of your company (contact names, addresses,
   phone and email).
3) The problem or problems it is designed to solve.
4) The algorithm or algorithms you implement (if they are based on
   well-known methods like simplex, branch-and-bound, etc), and the 
   language your code is written in.
5) The platform(s) your code runs on, and the list price or range of
   prices for each machine.
6) Size of problems you can handle.
7) Whether you offer special academic or classroom pricing.
8) Is your code in the public domain?
9) If not, does your product include source code?
10) How can your code be aquired?
11) Any other comments you would like to make (be brief).

(*) Authors only for the moment, please.  Once I get a fairly stable
list together, I will ask for corrections and additions.

Thanks for your interest and assistance.

		Matthew Saltzman
		Clemson Univ Math Sciences
		[email-masked]
		[email-masked]

[Editors Note: Terrific project!  Thanks for taking it on.
I, for one, would sure like to see the results.  Good luck.
  -- Cleve]

------------------------------

From: Stefano Foresti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 10:16:36 -0600
Subject: Adaptive Methods for PDEs

I am investigating the literature of adaptive methods for partial 
differential equations. Particularly, I am interested in parabolic 
problems with space-time adaptation. 

I would appreciate any information on recent advances in this field,
references, and possibly copies of technical reports or preprints.
I would also welcome any information on publicly available codes.

Stefano Foresti
Utah Supercomputing Institute
and Department of Mathematics
85 SSB
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
tel: (801)581-3173  Fax: (801)581-5217
E-mail: [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: Stewart Levin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 91 15:14:52 -0500
Subject: Information Sought About "Gold Codes" 

I'm attempting to trade off some quality for computational speed
in finite difference modeling.  The plan is to inject more than
one emitter (source) into a 2D or 3D medium simultaneously and
distinguish them by supply them with different waveforms which
have relatively small cross-correlations with each other.  Early
work with pseudo-random sequences were not too bad, but I've been
told I should be using Gold codes.  Does anyone have a computer
subroutine for generating such sequences and/or comments on
whether this is a reasonable thing to do?

    Stewart A. Levin
    Mobil Research and Developement
    [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: Henk van der Vorst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 91 12:10:40 +0100
Subject: More on Refereeing

I do not like the idea of punishing unwilling referees, I'd rather
prefer to motivate all possible referees.

Some journals are very nice towards referees, so that at least
you feel acknowledged afterwards, e.g., BIT lists the referees
at the end of each complete volume.
BIT even goes so far to give a small present to the referees for
their work in the past year. I am not suggesting that all journals
would adopt that policy, but I must confess that it gave me a
pleasant feeling at least once a year (with respect to BIT).

Nowadays many people have to specify their scientific activities,
and refereeing is accepted (at least at some Dutch universities) as
a scientific activity (though of lower rank than publications).
Maybe it would help if one would receive a written proof of
having refereed for some journal.

Henk van der Vorst

Henk A. van der Vorst                   [email-masked]
Department of Mathematics               tel: +31-30-533732
University of Utrecht                   Telefax: +31-30-518394
P.O. Box 80.010
Utrecht, The Netherlands

------------------------------

From: Eduardo Sontag <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 16:38:31 EDT
Subject: About Journal Refereeing

Let me follow-up on this discussion with a couple of suggestions for
improving the review process and some comments on Gear's letter.

(1) Rewarding people who are particularly good at refereeing.

 This is done to some extent automatically, as such people are invited to join
 editorial boards ---which is taken by many to be correlated with the
 individual's standing in the corresponding field.   Also editors may tend to
 be more sympathetic to papers by such individuals in "borderline" cases.
 No need for a rule here, just let human nature take care of it.

(2) Make sure to ask.

 It is extremely effective to first ASK --by email-- a potential reviewer
 if (s)he is willing to do the job.  I usually include one or two paragraphs
 explaining the topic, say paraphrasing the abstract.  The whole process takes
 a couple of days, even with overseas referees, and once people agree they find
 it hard to later say they don't have the time.   (The danger here is that most
 people might just-say-no, while presumably it is harder to not do a review
 once the paper is on your desktop.  But I strongly believe that the opposite
 is true; the courtesy is appreciated, and one can always include a flattering
 statement in the email plus suitable pleas of desperation...)

(3) Make life EASY for the reviewer.

 Always insist that there is no need for the referee to send hardcopy.  E-mail
 reviews are far easier to do --no need to walk to the printer, to find an
 envelope, to type an address, to walk to the mailroom.  May seem trivial, but
 it can make a tremendous difference for busy people.

(4) Divide work.

 Sometimes a superficial browsing is very useful when evaluating a paper,
 especially if one can in addition find a detailed-but-narrow reviewer.  For
 instance, one may have a graduate student check all epsilons and deltas, while
 asking someone senior in the field to take a quick look at the paper and give
 an evaluation of its relevance, apparent novelty, and so forth.

(5) Be tough with authors.

 It is hard to read a badly-written paper.  So return to the authors,
 unreviewed, a paper that is in that category.  It is extremely frustrating to
 have to first rewrite a paper for oneself before being able to referee it.

Of course, the above will not solve the problem.  The REAL problem is that
people publish too much, especially when there is so little to say.  With
electronic distribution of preprints, this is a ridiculous situation.  The
causes are many, and we are all to blame, but I think that publishers (and
professional organizations) are partly responsible for the proliferation of
journals.

  Eduardo Sontag

------------------------------

From: Beresford Parlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 91 17:12:24 PDT
Subject: More on Breakdown of the Refereeing Process

Breakdown of Refereeing Process

In response to the flurry of messages discussing the publication process in 
SIAM, and other journals, I would like to suggest a thought experiment that
puts the publication issue in perspective.

A mechanism that permits the publication of worthy papers in recognized
specialized journals is of benefit to the corresponding technical community.
However no one has said that authorship should be either profitable or
painless.

Consider the situation in which salary, but not rank, would be inversely
proportional to publication rate (measured in pages per year). In addition
page charges would not be payable either from contracts or by institutions.
Students, postdoctoral scholars, and less affluent academics would seek
sponsors among their colleagues who would be allowed to pay those charges.

In contrast to the current situation which encourages the dissemination of
information the scheme outlined above would provide an interesting trade off
between material and intellectual rewards. Some discoveries would be worth
some immediate sacrifice and a few years of hardship. Authors judgement 
would gradually become more refined. Promotion in rank at universities would
proceed in the usual way.

I suspect that members of SIAM would prefer the present situation with its
inconvenient symptoms rather than one that tried to cure the malady. 

          Information is toxic except in small doses.

					 Beresford Parlett

------------------------------

From: Robert Kaplan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 91 09:32:41 -0400
Subject: Journal of Computational Physics Editors

Subject: Additional Information Regarding Journal of
          Computational Physics

While some of the editors of Journal of Computational
Physics have resigned (Drs. Alder, Bell, Hedstrom, Mirin,
and Marx), the majority of the editors will continue (e.g.,
Drs. Brackbill, Chorin, Glowinski, Johnson, Marcus, Norman,
Osher, Roe, etc.).  In conjunction with the scientific
community, Academic Press will name a new editor-in-chief in
the very near future.

As indicated in the previous announcement, authors and
referees should send correspondence concerning manuscripts to

              Journal of Computational Physics
              Editorial Office
              1250 Sixth Avenue
              San Diego, CA 92101

              Telephone:  (619) 699-6467
                    Fax:  (619) 699-6859
                  Email:  [email-masked].

In addition, all new manuscripts should be submitted
directly to the above address.  The manuscripts will then be
routed to the journal's editors for peer review and
publication consideration.  The editorial office in San
Diego has been established to provide secretarial and
operational support for the new editor-in-chief.

Academic Press is also pleased to make the following
announcements.

  1) Effective immediately, we will accept electronic
     manuscripts, including TeX and LaTeX.  Contact the San
     Diego office for details.

  2) Starting in 1992, the journal will be available at a
     reduced subscription rate for individuals subscribing
     to the journal for personal use.  In 1992, the personal
     rate will be $100 for subscribers in North America.
     Contact the San Diego office for details.

  3) The backlog of accepted papers that the journal has
     experienced in recent years will be eliminated in the
     coming months.  This backlog will be published during
     1992, at no extra cost to libraries.  In the future,
     the journal will review, accept, and publish
     manuscripts in a timeframe similar to the other main
     journals of physics and computation.

Academic Press appreciates that Journal of Computational
Physics is the premier journal of the field and we are
committed to its continuing excellence.  We believe the
editorial transition that is currently underway will result
in a journal that is better able to face the challenges of
the future.  As always, it is our aim to continue to publish
the journal in the manner that best serves the scientific
community.

We very much welcome suggestions and advice about the future
direction of the journal.  Please contact the Academic Press
Senior Editor for Physical Science, Bob Kaplan at

              Academic Press
              955 Massachusetts Avenue
              Cambridge, MA  02139

              Telephone:  (617) 876-3907
                    Fax:  (617) 661-3608
                  Email:  [email-masked]
                          [email-masked]

with your comments.

------------------------------

From: SIAM Publications Department <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 17:21 EDT
Subject: SIAM Conference on Optimization

Fourth SIAM Conference on Optimization
Sponsored by SIAM Activity Group on Optimization

May 11-13, 1992
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Chicago, Illinois

Invited Presentations

Convex Optimization Problems Arising in Controller Design
Stephen P. Boyd, Stanford University

Development of Codes for Large-Scale LP, QP and NLP
Roger Fletcher, University of Dundee, Scotland

Algorithms for Solving Large Nonlinear Optimization Problems
Nicholas I. M. Gould, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, United Kingdom

Cheap Gradients and Beyond: Algorithmic Differentiation in Optimization
Andreas Griewank, Argonne National Laboratory

Solving Large-Scale Network Problems
Rutgers University

Optimization and Stability in the Scheduling of Manufacturing Systems
P.R. Kumar, University of Illinois, Urbana

Recent Progress in Network Flows
Eva Tardos, Cornell University

Recent Progress on Interior Point Methods
Michael J. Todd, Cornell University

Interior Point Methods for Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization Problems
Margaret H. Wright, AT & T Bell Laboratories

Minisymposia
   (Partial list)

Recent Theoretical Advances in Interior Point Methods
Kurt Anstreicher, Yale University

Combinatorial Optimization
Francisco Barahona, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Optimization Problems in Chemical Engineering
Lorenz Biegler, Carnegie-Mellon University

Constrained Nonlinear Optimization
Richard H. Byrd, University of Colorado, Boulder

Advanced Interfaces for Optimization Software
Robert Fourer, Northwestern University

Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization
Philip R. Gill, University of California, San Diego

Optimization in Control and Differential Equations
Carl T. Kelley, North Carolina State University

Recent Computational Advances in Interior Point Methods
Sanjay Mehrotra, Northwestern University

Network Flow Algorithms
James B. Orlin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Parallel Algorithms in Optimization
Stephen Wright, Argonne National Laboratory

For further information regarding this conference, please contact
SIAM Conference Department, 3600 University City Science Center,
Philadelphia, PA  19104-2688; telephone: 215-382-9800; fax: 215-386-7999;
e-mail:  [email-masked].

------------------------------

From: Roy Mathias <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 91 14:47:09 CDT
Subject: Workshop in Numerical Ranges and Radii

          Preliminary Announcement
          
              A workshop on
  ``Numerical Ranges and Numerical Radii''
 
August 10 (Monday) - August 15 (Saturday), 1992.
          Department of Mathematics 
       The College of William and Mary

The aim of the proposed workshop is to bring researchers 
on numerical ranges and numerical radii from different 
(research and geographic) areas together to exchange
ideas on the subject.  In particular, there are four 
primary objectives for the workshop.

(a) To study and further explore applications of various 
    kinds of generalized numerical ranges and numerical 
    radii in different branches of science.
(b) To discuss existing mathematical tools and techniques 
    and try to generate new methods to handle problems on  
    numerical ranges and numerical radii.
(c) To discuss possible research projects or computer projects 
    on numerical ranges and numerical radii appropriate for the
    undergraduate or graduate level.
(d) To exchange research problems, ideas and experience on the 
    subject.

While the main theme of the workshop is on numerical ranges and 
numerical radii, discussion will be focused on the relations
and applications of the subject to several specific topics.

Day 1. Operator theory and C*-algebras 
Day 2. Norms and Matrix inequalities 
Day 3. Decomposable numerical ranges and Quantum physics
Day 4. Systems theory and Computer generation of numerical ranges  
Day 5. Location of eigenvalues
Day 6. Other related subjects such as completion problems, linear
       preserver problems, etc.

For more information concerning the workshop please contact

                   Dr. Chi-Kwong Li
                   Department of Mathematics
                   The College of William and Mary
                   Williamsburg, VA 23187 USA
 
                   e-mail: [email-masked]
                   tel: (804) 221-2042

Support for this workshop comes from the The College of William
and Mary. Support funds are being sought for workshop participants 
and more details will be known by the end of March, 1992.

Note: Persons from North America planning to attend the second 
      ILAS meeting at Lisbon, August 3 - 7, 1992, may be able 
      to include a stop at Williamsburg on their reutrn tickets.

------------------------------

End of NA Digest
**************************
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