198 research outputs found
Victoria Amazonica Optimization (VAO): An Algorithm Inspired by the Giant Water Lily Plant
The Victoria Amazonica plant, often known as the Giant Water Lily, has the
largest floating spherical leaf in the world, with a maximum leaf diameter of 3
meters. It spreads its leaves by the force of its spines and creates a large
shadow underneath, killing any plants that require sunlight. These water
tyrants use their formidable spines to compel each other to the surface and
increase their strength to grab more space from the surface. As they spread
throughout the pond or basin, with the earliest-growing leaves having more room
to grow, each leaf gains a unique size. Its flowers are transsexual and when
they bloom, Cyclocephala beetles are responsible for the pollination process,
being attracted to the scent of the female flower. After entering the flower,
the beetle becomes covered with pollen and transfers it to another flower for
fertilization. After the beetle leaves, the flower turns into a male and
changes color from white to pink. The male flower dies and sinks into the
water, releasing its seed to help create a new generation. In this paper, the
mathematical life cycle of this magnificent plant is introduced, and each leaf
and blossom are treated as a single entity. The proposed bio-inspired algorithm
is tested with 24 benchmark optimization test functions, such as Ackley, and
compared to ten other famous algorithms, including the Genetic Algorithm. The
proposed algorithm is tested on 10 optimization problems: Minimum Spanning
Tree, Hub Location Allocation, Quadratic Assignment, Clustering, Feature
Selection, Regression, Economic Dispatching, Parallel Machine Scheduling, Color
Quantization, and Image Segmentation and compared to traditional and
bio-inspired algorithms. Overall, the performance of the algorithm in all tasks
is satisfactory.Comment: 45 page
Industrial and Tramp Ship Routing Problems: Closing the Gap for Real-Scale Instances
Recent studies in maritime logistics have introduced a general ship routing
problem and a benchmark suite based on real shipping segments, considering
pickups and deliveries, cargo selection, ship-dependent starting locations,
travel times and costs, time windows, and incompatibility constraints, among
other features. Together, these characteristics pose considerable challenges
for exact and heuristic methods, and some cases with as few as 18 cargoes
remain unsolved. To face this challenge, we propose an exact branch-and-price
(B&P) algorithm and a hybrid metaheuristic. Our exact method generates
elementary routes, but exploits decremental state-space relaxation to speed up
column generation, heuristic strong branching, as well as advanced
preprocessing and route enumeration techniques. Our metaheuristic is a
sophisticated extension of the unified hybrid genetic search. It exploits a
set-partitioning phase and uses problem-tailored variation operators to
efficiently handle all the problem characteristics. As shown in our
experimental analyses, the B&P optimally solves 239/240 existing instances
within one hour. Scalability experiments on even larger problems demonstrate
that it can optimally solve problems with around 60 ships and 200 cargoes
(i.e., 400 pickup and delivery services) and find optimality gaps below 1.04%
on the largest cases with up to 260 cargoes. The hybrid metaheuristic
outperforms all previous heuristics and produces near-optimal solutions within
minutes. These results are noteworthy, since these instances are comparable in
size with the largest problems routinely solved by shipping companies
Performance Analysis of Evolutionary Algorithms for the Minimum Label Spanning Tree Problem
Some experimental investigations have shown that evolutionary algorithms
(EAs) are efficient for the minimum label spanning tree (MLST) problem.
However, we know little about that in theory. As one step towards this issue,
we theoretically analyze the performances of the (1+1) EA, a simple version of
EAs, and a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm called GSEMO on the MLST
problem. We reveal that for the MLST problem the (1+1) EA and GSEMO
achieve a -approximation ratio in expected polynomial times of
the number of nodes and the number of labels. We also show that GSEMO
achieves a -approximation ratio for the MLST problem in expected
polynomial time of and . At the same time, we show that the (1+1) EA and
GSEMO outperform local search algorithms on three instances of the MLST
problem. We also construct an instance on which GSEMO outperforms the (1+1) EA
A Polyhedral Study of Mixed 0-1 Set
We consider a variant of the well-known single node fixed charge network flow set with constant capacities. This set arises from the relaxation of more general mixed integer sets such as lot-sizing problems with multiple suppliers. We provide a complete polyhedral characterization of the convex hull of the given set
Revisiting the Evolution and Application of Assignment Problem: A Brief Overview
The assignment problem (AP) is incredibly challenging that can model many real-life problems. This paper provides a limited review of the recent developments that have appeared in the literature, meaning of assignment problem as well as solving techniques and will provide a review on a lot of research studies on different types of assignment problem taking place in present day real life situation in order to capture the variations in different types of assignment techniques. Keywords: Assignment problem, Quadratic Assignment, Vehicle Routing, Exact Algorithm, Bound, Heuristic etc
Disruption management
The main objective of this project is to model the ARP (Aircraft Recovery Problem) from a constraint programming (CP) point of view. The information required for this project is extracted from previous papers that cope with the problem using heuristics, metaheuristics or using network-models. Also, two scenarios will be tested to verify that the implementation is correct
OPTIMIZATION OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION HAZMATS AND REGULAR COMMODITIES
Transportation of dangerous goods has been receiving more attention in the realm of academic and scientific research during the last few decades as countries have been increasingly becoming industrialized throughout the world, thereby making Hazmats an integral part of our life style. However, the number of scholarly articles in this field is not as many as those of other areas in SCM. Considering the low-probability-and-high-consequence (LPHC) essence of transportation of Hazmats, on the one hand, and immense volume of shipments accounting for more than hundred tons in North America and Europe, on the other, we can safely state that the number of scholarly articles and dissertations have not been proportional to the significance of the subject of interest. On this ground, we conducted our research to contribute towards further developing the domain of Hazmats transportation, and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), in general terms.
Transportation of Hazmats, from logistical standpoint, may include all modes of transport via air, marine, road and rail, as well as intermodal transportation systems. Although road shipment is predominant in most of the literature, railway transportation of Hazmats has proven to be a potentially significant means of transporting dangerous goods with respect to both economies of scale and risk of transportation; these factors, have not just given rise to more thoroughly investigation of intermodal transportation of Hazmats using road and rail networks, but has encouraged the competition between rail and road companies which may indeed have some inherent advantages compared to the other medium due to their infrastructural and technological backgrounds. Truck shipment has ostensibly proven to be providing more flexibility; trains, per contra, provide more reliability in terms of transport risk for conveying Hazmats in bulks.
In this thesis, in consonance with the aforementioned motivation, we provide an introduction into the hazardous commodities shipment through rail network in the first chapter of the thesis. Providing relevant statistics on the volume of Hazmat goods, number of accidents, rate of incidents, and rate of fatalities and injuries due to the incidents involving Hazmats, will shed light onto the significance of the topic under study. As well, we review the most pertinent articles while putting more emphasis on the state-of-the-art papers, in chapter two. Following the discussion in chapter 3 and looking at the problem from carrier company’s perspective, a mixed integer quadratically constraint problem (MIQCP) is developed which seeks for the minimization of transportation cost under a set of constraints including those associating with Hazmats. Due to the complexity of the problem, the risk function has been piecewise linearized using a set of auxiliary variables, thereby resulting in an MIP problem. Further, considering the interests of both carrier companies and regulatory agencies, which are minimization of cost and risk, respectively, a multiobjective MINLP model is developed, which has been reduced to an MILP through piecewise linearization of the risk term in the objective function. For both single-objective and multiobjective formulations, model variants with bifurcated and nonbifurcated flows have been presented. Then, in chapter 4, we carry out experiments considering two main cases where the first case presents smaller instances of the problem and the second case focuses on a larger instance of the problem.
Eventually, in chapter five, we conclude the dissertation with a summary of the overall discussion as well as presenting some comments on avenues of future work
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