A Novel Method for Solving the Fully Fuzzy Bilevel Linear Programming Problem

We address a fully fuzzy bilevel linear programming problem in which all the coefficients and variables of both objective functions and constraints are expressed as fuzzy numbers. This paper is to develop a new method to deal with the fully fuzzy bilevel linear programming problem by applying interval programming method. To this end, we first discretize membership grade of fuzzy coefficients and fuzzy decision variables of the problem into a finite number of α-level sets. By using α-level sets of fuzzy numbers, the fully fuzzy bilevel linear programming problem is transformed into an interval bilevel linear programming problem for each α-level set. The main idea to solve the obtained interval bilevel linear programming problem is to convert the problem into two deterministic subproblems which correspond to the lower and upper bounds of the upper level objective function. Based on the Kth-best algorithm, the two subproblems can be solved sequentially. Based on a series of α-level sets, we introduce a linear piecewise trapezoidal fuzzy number to approximate the optimal value of the upper level objective function of the fully fuzzy bilevel linear programming problem. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach

Fuzzy Bi-level Decision-Making Techniques: A Survey

© 2016 the authors. Bi-level decision-making techniques aim to deal with decentralized management problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a bi-level hierarchy. A challenge in handling bi-level decision problems is that various uncertainties naturally appear in decision-making process. Significant efforts have been devoted that fuzzy set techniques can be used to effectively deal with uncertain issues in bi-level decision-making, known as fuzzy bi-level decision-making techniques, and researchers have successfully gained experience in this area. It is thus vital that an instructive review of current trends in this area should be conducted, not only of the theoretical research but also the practical developments. This paper systematically reviews up-to-date fuzzy bi-level decisionmaking techniques, including models, approaches, algorithms and systems. It also clusters related technique developments into four main categories: basic fuzzy bi-level decision-making, fuzzy bi-level decision-making with multiple optima, fuzzy random bi-level decision-making, and the applications of bi-level decision-making techniques in different domains. By providing state-of-the-art knowledge, this survey paper will directly support researchers and practitioners in their understanding of developments in theoretical research results and applications in relation to fuzzy bi-level decision-making techniques

Fuzzy Bilevel Optimization

In the dissertation the solution approaches for different fuzzy optimization problems are presented. The single-level optimization problem with fuzzy objective is solved by its reformulation into a biobjective optimization problem. A special attention is given to the computation of the membership function of the fuzzy solution of the fuzzy optimization problem in the linear case. Necessary and sufficient optimality conditions of the the convex nonlinear fuzzy optimization problem are derived in differentiable and nondifferentiable cases. A fuzzy optimization problem with both fuzzy objectives and constraints is also investigated in the thesis in the linear case. These solution approaches are applied to fuzzy bilevel optimization problems. In the case of bilevel optimization problem with fuzzy objective functions, two algorithms are presented and compared using an illustrative example. For the case of fuzzy linear bilevel optimization problem with both fuzzy objectives and constraints k-th best algorithm is adopted.:1 Introduction 1 1.1 Why optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Fuzziness as a concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 2 1.3 Bilevel problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 Preliminaries 11 2.1 Fuzzy sets and fuzzy numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2 Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.3 Fuzzy order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.4 Fuzzy functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 3 Optimization problem with fuzzy objective 19 3.1 Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.2 Solution method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.3 Local optimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4 Existence of an optimal solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4 Linear optimization with fuzzy objective 27 4.1 Main approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 4.2 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4.3 Optimality conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 4.4 Membership function value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4.4.1 Special case of triangular fuzzy numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4.4.2 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 5 Optimality conditions 47 5.1 Differentiable fuzzy optimization problem . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 48 5.1.1 Basic notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 5.1.2 Necessary optimality conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 49 5.1.3 Suffcient optimality conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5.2 Nondifferentiable fuzzy optimization problem . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 5.2.1 Basic notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 5.2.2 Necessary optimality conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 5.2.3 Suffcient optimality conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 5.2.4 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 6 Fuzzy linear optimization problem over fuzzy polytope 59 6.1 Basic notions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 6.2 The fuzzy polytope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 6.3 Formulation and solution method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 65 6.4 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 7 Bilevel optimization with fuzzy objectives 73 7.1 General formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 7.2 Solution approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 7.3 Yager index approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 7.4 Algorithm I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 7.5 Membership function approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 7.6 Algorithm II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 7.7 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 8 Linear fuzzy bilevel optimization (with fuzzy objectives and constraints) 87 8.1 Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 8.2 Solution approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 8.3 Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 8.4 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 9 Conclusions 95 Bibliography 9

A λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm for fuzzy-linear multiple-objective bilevel optimization

Bilevel-programming techniques are developed to handle decentralized problems with two-level decision makers, which are leaders and followers, who may have more than one objective to achieve. This paper proposes a λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm to solve fuzzy-linear multiple-objective bilevel (FLMOB) decision problems. First, based on the definition of a distance measure between two fuzzy vectors using λ-cut, a fuzzy-linear bilevel goal (FLBG) model is formatted, and related theorems are proved. Then, using a λ-cut for fuzzy coefficients and a goal-programming strategy for multiple objectives, a λ-cut and goal-programming-based algorithm to solve FLMOB decision problems is presented. A case study for a newsboy problem is adopted to illustrate the application and executing procedure of this algorithm. Finally, experiments are carried out to discuss and analyze the performance of this algorithm. © 2006 IEEE

Fuzzy Random Noncooperative Two-level Linear Programming through Absolute Deviation Minimization Using Possibility and Necessity

This paper considers fuzzy random two-level linear programming problems under noncooperative behaviorof the decision makers. Having introduced fuzzy goals of decision makers together with the possibiliy and necessity measure, following absolute deviation minimization, fuzzy random two-level programin problems are transformed into deterministic ones. Extended Stackelberg solutions are introduced andcomputational methods are also presented

An Evolutionary Algorithm Using Duality-Base-Enumerating Scheme for Interval Linear Bilevel Programming Problems

Interval bilevel programming problem is hard to solve due to its hierarchical structure as well as the uncertainty of coefficients. This paper is focused on a class of interval linear bilevel programming problems, and an evolutionary algorithm based on duality bases is proposed. Firstly, the objective coefficients of the lower level and the right-hand-side vector are uniformly encoded as individuals, and the relative intervals are taken as the search space. Secondly, for each encoded individual, based on the duality theorem, the original problem is transformed into a single level program simply involving one nonlinear equality constraint. Further, by enumerating duality bases, this nonlinear equality is deleted, and the single level program is converted into several linear programs. Finally, each individual can be evaluated by solving these linear programs. The computational results of 7 examples show that the algorithm is feasible and robust

A compromise-based particle swarm optimization algorithm for solving Bi-level programming problems with fuzzy parameters

© 2015 IEEE. Bi-level programming has arisen to handle decentralized decision-making problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a bi-level hierarchy. Fuzzy parameters often appear in such a problem in applications and this is called a fuzzy bi-level programming problem. Since the existing approaches lack universality in solving such problems, this study aims to develop a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve fuzzy bi-level programming problems in the linear and nonlinear versions. In this paper, we first present a general fuzzy bi-level programming problem and discuss related theoretical properties based on a fuzzy number ranking method commonly used. A PSO algorithm is then developed to solve the fuzzy bi-level programming problem based on different compromised selections by decision entities on the feasible degree for constraint conditions under fuzziness. Lastly, an illustrative numerical example and two benchmark examples are adopted to state the effectiveness of the compromise-based PSO algorithm

A solution to bi/tri-level programming problems using particle swarm optimization

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. Multilevel (including bi-level and tri-level) programming aims to solve decentralized decision-making problems that feature interactive decision entities distributed throughout a hierarchical organization. Since the multilevel programming problem is strongly NP-hard and traditional exact algorithmic approaches lack efficiency, heuristics-based particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms have been used to generate an alternative for solving such problems. However, the existing PSO algorithms are limited to solving linear or small-scale bi-level programming problems. This paper first develops a novel bi-level PSO algorithm to solve general bi-level programs involving nonlinear and large-scale problems. It then proposes a tri-level PSO algorithm for handling tri-level programming problems that are more challenging than bi-level programs and have not been well solved by existing algorithms. For the sake of exploring the algorithms' performance, the proposed bi/tri-level PSO algorithms are applied to solve 62 benchmark problems and 810 large-scale problems which are randomly constructed. The computational results and comparison with other algorithms clearly illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed PSO algorithms in solving bi-level and tri-level programming problems

A fuzzy tri-level decision making algorithm and its application in supply chain

In this paper, we develop a fuzzy tri-level decision making (FTLDM) model to deal with decentralized decision making problems with three levels of decision makers. Based on the -cut of fuzzy set, we transform an FTLDM problem into a multiobjective tri-level decision making problem. Based on the linear tri-level Kth-best algorithm, the global optimal solution can be obtained. A case study for third-party logistics decision making in supply chain is utilized to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. © 2013. The authors-Published by Atlantis Press

Finding Optimal Strategies in a Multi-Period Multi-Leader-Follower Stackelberg Game Using an Evolutionary Algorithm

Stackelberg games are a classic example of bilevel optimization problems, which are often encountered in game theory and economics. These are complex problems with a hierarchical structure, where one optimization task is nested within the other. Despite a number of studies on handling bilevel optimization problems, these problems still remain a challenging territory, and existing methodologies are able to handle only simple problems with few variables under assumptions of continuity and differentiability. In this paper, we consider a special case of a multi-period multi-leader-follower Stackelberg competition model with non-linear cost and demand functions and discrete production variables. The model has potential applications, for instance in aircraft manufacturing industry, which is an oligopoly where a few giant firms enjoy a tremendous commitment power over the other smaller players. We solve cases with different number of leaders and followers, and show how the entrance or exit of a player affects the profits of the other players. In the presence of various model complexities, we use a computationally intensive nested evolutionary strategy to find an optimal solution for the model. The strategy is evaluated on a test-suite of bilevel problems, and it has been shown that the method is successful in handling difficult bilevel problems.Comment: To be published in Computers and Operations Researc