Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Inspired by the usefulness of difference of convex functions in some problems, e.g. sparse representations, we use such an idea of difference of convex functions to propose a method of finding an eigenfunction of a self-adjointoperator. In a matrix setting, this method always finds an eigenvector of a symmetric matrix corresponding to the smallest eigenvalue without solving Ax=b. In fact, such a matrix A is allowed to be singular, as well. We can apply the same setting to a generalized eigenvalue problem. We will discuss its convergence as well.

This talk will tell the story on using simulation for painting. I will tell a few of projects that had simulation and painting involved. One is iPad-based ultra-low-cost real time simulation of old photography process to compute effects that modern day users may find interesting. The other is more full-blown fluid simulation for painting using highest-end GPU. Even with massive processing power of GPU, real time high fidelity painting simulation is hard since computation budget is limited. Basically we should deal with large errors. It may sound odd if someone says that very low-accuracy simulation is interesting - but this is very true. In particular, we tried to pull most pressure effect out from about 10 Jacobi iterations that we could afford. I would like to share my experience on improving fixed number of fixed point iterations.

Fokker-Planck equations, along with stochastic differential equations, play vital roles in physics, population modeling, game theory and optimization (finite or infinite dimensional). In this thesis, we study three topics, both theoretically and computationally, centered around them.In part one, we consider the optimal transport for finite discrete states, which are on a finite but arbitrary graph. By defining a discrete 2-Wasserstein metric, we derive Fokker-Planck equations on finite graphs as gradient flows of free energies. By using dynamical viewpoint, we obtain an exponential convergence result to equilibrium. This derivation provides tools for many applications, including numerics for nonlinear partial differential equations and evolutionary game theory.In part two, we introduce a new stochastic differential equation based framework for optimal control with constraints. The framework can efficiently solve several real world problems in differential games and Robotics, including the path-planning problem.In part three, we introduce a new noise model for stochastic oscillators. With this model, we prove global boundedness of trajectories. In addition, we derive a pair of associated Fokker-Planck equations.

The relatively recent introduction of viscosity solutions and the Barles-Souganidis convergence framework have allowed for considerable progress in the numerical solution of fully nonlinear elliptic equations. Convergent, wide-stencil finite difference methods now exist for a variety of problems. However, these schemes are defined only on uniform Cartesian meshes over a rectangular domain. We describe a framework for constructing convergent meshfree finite difference approximations for a class of nonlinear elliptic operators. These approximations are defined on unstructured point clouds, which allows for computation on non-uniform meshes and complicated geometries. Because the schemes are monotone, they fit within the Barles-Souganidis convergence framework and can serve as a foundation for higher-order filtered methods. We present computational results for several examples including problems posed on random point clouds, computation of convex envelopes, obstacle problems, Monge-Ampere equations, and non-continuous solutions of the prescribed Gaussian curvature equation.