This chapter presents the Nelder–Mead simplex method and the Broyden– Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) method for finite-element-model updating. The methods presented have been tested on a simple beam and an unsymmetrical H-shaped structure. It was noted that, on average, the Nelder–Mead simplex method gives more accurate results than did the BFGS method. This is mainly because the BFGS method r...

Combining meta-heuristics with local search methods is one approach that recently has drawn much attention to design more efficient methods for solving continuous global optimization problems. In this paper, a new algorithm called Simplex Coding Genetic Algorithm (SCGA) is proposed by hybridizing genetic algorithm and simplexbased local search method called Nelder-Mead method. In the SCGA, each...

During the early '70's, Carver Mead began a pioneering series of courses in integrated circuit design at Caltech, presenting the basics of industry MOS design practice at the time. Observing some of the students' successes in later doing projects using these basics, Mead sensed that it might be possible to create new, much simpler methods of IC design than those then used in industry. In the mi...

The delineation of lateral and vertical gradients of organic contaminants in lakes is hampered by low concentrationsand nondetection of many organic compounds in water. Passive samplers (semipermeable membrane devices [SPMDs] and polar organic chemical integrative samplers [POCIS]) are well suited for assessing gradients because they can detect synthetic organic compounds (SOCs) at pg L(-1) con...

In Sex and Temperament, Margaret Mead depicted the Mountain Arapesh of New Guinea as a gentle, nurturant people among whom warfare was "practically unknown." A few years later, however, Reo Fortune, her husband and cofieldworker, was to claim that warfare was "good Arapesh custom." This article reexamines this disagreement, addressing two issues: Did the Arapesh have a tradition of warfare?, an...

Offered an attractive choice of PhD berths, he opted for Columbia, and the theoretician Joseph E. Mayer as supervisor. The war intervened and Doty was deflected for a period into work on heavy water on the periphery of the Manhattan Project. It did not impede his daytime research, which progressed rapidly: he and a fellow student, Bruno Zimm, built the country's first light-scattering instrumen...