This paper interprets the stabilized finite element method via residual minimization as a variational multiscale method. We approximate the solution to the partial differential equations using two discrete spaces that we build on a triangulation of the domain; we denote these spaces as coarse and enriched spaces. Building on the adaptive stabilized finite element method via residual minimization, we find a coarse-scale approximation in a continuous space by minimizing the residual on a dual discontinuous Galerkin norm; this process allows us to compute a robust error estimate to construct an on-the-fly adaptive method. We reinterpret the residual projection using the variational multiscale framework to derive a fine-scale approximation. As a result, on each mesh of the adaptive process, we obtain stable coarse- and fine-scale solutions derived from a symmetric saddle-point formulation and an a-posteriori error indicator to guide automatic adaptivity. We test our framework in several challenging scenarios for linear and nonlinear convection-dominated diffusion problems to demonstrate the framework's performance in providing stability in the solution with optimal convergence rates in the asymptotic regime and robust performance in the pre-asymptotic regime. Lastly, we introduce a heuristic dual-term contribution in the variational form to improve the full-scale approximation for symmetric formulations (e.g., diffusion problem).
The two-trials rule for drug approval requires "at least two adequate and well-controlled studies, each convincing on its own, to establish effectiveness". This is usually employed by requiring two significant pivotal trials and is the standard regulatory requirement to provide evidence for a new drug's efficacy. However, there is need to develop suitable alternatives to this rule for a number of reasons, including the possible availability of data from more than two trials. I consider the case of up to 3 studies and stress the importance to control the partial Type-I error rate, where only some studies have a true null effect, while maintaining the overall Type-I error rate of the two-trials rule, where all studies have a null effect. Some less-known $p$-value combination methods are useful to achieve this: Pearson's method, Edgington's method and the recently proposed harmonic mean $\chi^2$-test. I study their properties and discuss how they can be extended to a sequential assessment of success while still ensuring overall Type-I error control. I compare the different methods in terms of partial Type-I error rate, project power and the expected number of studies required. Edgington's method is eventually recommended as it is easy to implement and communicate, has only moderate partial Type-I error rate inflation but substantially increased project power.
This paper presents a pressure-robust enriched Galerkin (EG) method for the Brinkman equations with minimal degrees of freedom based on EG velocity and pressure spaces. The velocity space consists of linear Lagrange polynomials enriched by a discontinuous, piecewise linear, and mean-zero vector function per element, while piecewise constant functions approximate the pressure. We derive, analyze, and compare two EG methods in this paper: standard and robust methods. The standard method requires a mesh size to be less than a viscous parameter to produce stable and accurate velocity solutions, which is impractical in the Darcy regime. Therefore, we propose the pressure-robust method by utilizing a velocity reconstruction operator and replacing EG velocity functions with a reconstructed velocity. The robust method yields error estimates independent of a pressure term and shows uniform performance from the Stokes to Darcy regimes, preserving minimal degrees of freedom. We prove well-posedness and error estimates for both the standard and robust EG methods. We finally confirm theoretical results through numerical experiments with two- and three-dimensional examples and compare the methods' performance to support the need for the robust method.
We consider additive Schwarz methods for boundary value problems involving the $p$-Laplacian. Although the existing theoretical estimates indicate a sublinear convergence rate for these methods, empirical evidence from numerical experiments demonstrates a linear convergence rate. In this paper, we narrow the gap between these theoretical and empirical results by presenting a novel convergence analysis. Firstly, we present an abstract convergence theory of additive Schwarz methods written in terms of a quasi-norm. This quasi-norm exhibits behavior similar to the Bregman distance of the convex energy functional associated to the problem. Secondly, we provide a quasi-norm version of the Poincar'{e}--Friedrichs inequality, which is essential for deriving a quasi-norm stable decomposition for a two-level domain decomposition setting. By utilizing these two key elements, we establish a new bound for the linear convergence rate of the methods.
Physics informed neural networks (PINNs) have emerged as a powerful tool to provide robust and accurate approximations of solutions to partial differential equations (PDEs). However, PINNs face serious difficulties and challenges when trying to approximate PDEs with dominant hyperbolic character. This research focuses on the development of a physics informed deep learning framework to approximate solutions to nonlinear PDEs that can develop shocks or discontinuities without any a-priori knowledge of the solution or the location of the discontinuities. The work takes motivation from finite element method that solves for solution values at nodes in the discretized domain and use these nodal values to obtain a globally defined solution field. Built on the rigorous mathematical foundations of the discontinuous Galerkin method, the framework naturally handles imposition of boundary conditions (Neumann/Dirichlet), entropy conditions, and regularity requirements. Several numerical experiments and validation with analytical solutions demonstrate the accuracy, robustness, and effectiveness of the proposed framework.
In this paper, we propose a general approach for explicit a posteriori error representation for convex minimization problems using basic convex duality relations. Exploiting discrete orthogonality relations in the space of element-wise constant vector fields as well as a discrete integration-by-parts formula between the Crouzeix-Raviart and the Raviart-Thomas element, all convex duality relations are transferred to a discrete level, making the explicit a posteriori error representation -- initially based on continuous arguments only -- practicable from a numerical point of view. In addition, we provide a generalized Marini formula for the primal solution that determines a discrete primal solution in terms of a given discrete dual solution. We benchmark all these concepts via the Rudin-Osher-Fatemi model. This leads to an adaptive algorithm that yields a (quasi-optimal) linear convergence rate.
Robust and accurate pose estimation of a robotic platform, so-called sensor-based odometry, is an essential part of many robotic applications. While many sensor odometry systems made progress by adding more complexity to the ego-motion estimation process, we move in the opposite direction. By removing a majority of parts and focusing on the core elements, we obtain a surprisingly effective system that is simple to realize and can operate under various environmental conditions using different LiDAR sensors. Our odometry estimation approach relies on point-to-point ICP combined with adaptive thresholding for correspondence matching, a robust kernel, a simple but widely applicable motion compensation approach, and a point cloud subsampling strategy. This yields a system with only a few parameters that in most cases do not even have to be tuned to a specific LiDAR sensor. Our system using the same parameters performs on par with state-of-the-art methods under various operating conditions using different platforms: automotive platforms, UAV-based operation, vehicles like segways, or handheld LiDARs. We do not require integrating IMU information and solely rely on 3D point cloud data obtained from a wide range of 3D LiDAR sensors, thus, enabling a broad spectrum of different applications and operating conditions. Our open-source system operates faster than the sensor frame rate in all presented datasets and is designed for real-world scenarios.
In this paper, we consider a new approach for semi-discretization in time and spatial discretization of a class of semi-linear stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) with multiplicative noise. The drift term of the SPDEs is only assumed to satisfy a one-sided Lipschitz condition and the diffusion term is assumed to be globally Lipschitz continuous. Our new strategy for time discretization is based on the Milstein method from stochastic differential equations. We use the energy method for its error analysis and show a strong convergence order of nearly $1$ for the approximate solution. The proof is based on new H\"older continuity estimates of the SPDE solution and the nonlinear term. For the general polynomial-type drift term, there are difficulties in deriving even the stability of the numerical solutions. We propose an interpolation-based finite element method for spatial discretization to overcome the difficulties. Then we obtain $H^1$ stability, higher moment $H^1$ stability, $L^2$ stability, and higher moment $L^2$ stability results using numerical and stochastic techniques. The nearly optimal convergence orders in time and space are hence obtained by coupling all previous results. Numerical experiments are presented to implement the proposed numerical scheme and to validate the theoretical results.
Several physical problems modeled by second-order partial differential equations can be efficiently solved using mixed finite elements of the Raviart-Thomas family for N-simplexes, introduced in the seventies. In case Neumann conditions are prescribed on a curvilinear boundary, the normal component of the flux variable should preferably not take up values at nodes shifted to the boundary of the approximating polytope in the corresponding normal direction. This is because the method's accuracy downgrades, which was shown in \cite{FBRT}. In that work an order-preserving technique was studied, based on a parametric version of these elements with curved simplexes. In this paper an alternative with straight-edged triangles for two-dimensional problems is proposed. The key point of this method is a Petrov-Galerkin formulation of the mixed problem, in which the test-flux space is a little different from the shape-flux space. After carrying out a well-posedness and stability analysis, error estimates of optimal order are proven.
We develop in this work the first polytopal complexes of differential forms. These complexes, inspired by the Discrete De Rham and the Virtual Element approaches, are discrete versions of the de Rham complex of differential forms built on meshes made of general polytopal elements. Both constructions benefit from the high-level approach of polytopal methods, which leads, on certain meshes, to leaner constructions than the finite element method. We establish commutation properties between the interpolators and the discrete and continuous exterior derivatives, prove key polynomial consistency results for the complexes, and show that their cohomologies are isomorphic to the cohomology of the continuous de Rham complex.
In this paper, we construct an efficient linear and fully decoupled finite difference scheme for wormhole propagation with heat transmission process on staggered grids, which only requires solving a sequence of linear elliptic equations at each time step. We first derive the positivity preserving properties for the discrete porosity and its difference quotient in time, and then obtain optimal error estimates for the velocity, pressure, concentration, porosity and temperature in different norms rigorously and carefully by establishing several auxiliary lemmas for the highly coupled nonlinear system. Numerical experiments in two- and three-dimensional cases are provided to verify our theoretical results and illustrate the capabilities of the constructed method.