Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Applied Optimal Design Mechanical and Structural Systems Edward J. Haug & Jasbir S. Arora This computer-aided design text presents and illustrates techniques for optimizing the design of a wide variety of mechanical and structural systems through the use of nonlinear programming and optimal control theory. A state space method is adopted that incorporates the system model as an integral part of the design formulations. Step-by-step numerical algorithms are given for each method of optimal design. Basic properties of the equations of mechanics are used to carry out design sensitivity analysis and optimization, with numerical efficiency and generality that is in most cases an order of magnitude faster in digital computation than applications using standard nonlinear programming methods. 1979 Optimum Design of Mechanical Elements, 2nd Ed. Ray C. Johnson The two basic optimization techniques, the method of optimal design (MOD) and automated optimal design (AOD), discussed in this valuable work can be applied to the optimal design of mechanical elements commonly found in machinery, mechanisms, mechanical assemblages, products, and structures. The many illustrative examples used to explicate these techniques include such topics as tensile bars, torsion bars, shafts in combined loading, helical and spur gears, helical springs, and hydrostatic journal bearings. The author covers curve fitting, equation simplification, material properties, and failure theories, as well as the effects of manufacturing errors on product performance and the need for a factor of safety in design work. 1980 Globally Optimal Design Douglass J. Wilde Here are new analytic optimization procedures effective where numerical methods either take too long or do not provide correct answers. This book uses mathematics sparingly, proving only results generated by examples. It defines simple design methods guaranteed to give the global, rather than any local, optimum through computations easy enough to be done on a manual calculator. The author confronts realistic situations: determining critical constraints; dealing with negative contributions; handling power function; tackling logarithmic and exponential nonlinearities; coping with standard sizes and indivisible components; and resolving conflicting objectives and logical restrictions. Special mathematical structures are exposed and used to solve design problems. 1978

Piecewise-deterministic Markov processes form a class of stochastic models with a sizeable scope of applications: biology, insurance, neuroscience, networks, finance... Such processes are defined by a deterministic motion punctuated by random jumps at random times, and offer simple yet challenging models to study. Nevertheless, the issue of statistical estimation of the parameters ruling the jump mechanism is far from trivial. Responding to new developments in the field as well as to current research interests and needs, Statistical inference for piecewise-deterministic Markov processes offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art results. It covers a wide range of general processes as well as applied models. The present book also dwells on statistics in the context of Markov chains, since piecewise-deterministic Markov processes are characterized by an embedded Markov chain corresponding to the position of the process right after the jumps.