19,517 research outputs found
State-of-the-art in aerodynamic shape optimisation methods
Aerodynamic optimisation has become an indispensable component for any aerodynamic design over the past 60 years, with applications to aircraft, cars, trains, bridges, wind turbines, internal pipe flows, and cavities, among others, and is thus relevant in many facets of technology. With advancements in computational power, automated design optimisation procedures have become more competent, however, there is an ambiguity and bias throughout the literature with regards to relative performance of optimisation architectures and employed algorithms. This paper provides a well-balanced critical review of the dominant optimisation approaches that have been integrated with aerodynamic theory for the purpose of shape optimisation. A total of 229 papers, published in more than 120 journals and conference proceedings, have been classified into 6 different optimisation algorithm approaches. The material cited includes some of the most well-established authors and publications in the field of aerodynamic optimisation. This paper aims to eliminate bias toward certain algorithms by analysing the limitations, drawbacks, and the benefits of the most utilised optimisation approaches. This review provides comprehensive but straightforward insight for non-specialists and reference detailing the current state for specialist practitioners
A Case Study for Financial Feasibility of Automated Costing Support in A Small Machine Shop
A knowledge-based cost estimating expert system is chosen by a Mexican machine shop. Differences between the traditional experience-based system employed and the automated system are studied. Data is gathered to analyze time effectiveness, accuracy and payback of the software. Data from seventy part models is recorded to study the time experiment, and data from fifty part models is used to study the accuracy and consistency. Data is analyzed by calculating mean, standard deviation, and test of hypothesis. The results indicate that the software is faster than the traditional quoting system; however, the payback point is high. Also, results show the software has a smaller average time-to-manufacture percentage difference between the automated system and the actual time-to-manufacture (TTM) compared to the percentage difference between the traditionalâs TTM and actual TTMs, and this difference is statistically significant. The standard deviation for the automated system is also less implying better consistency
Operational Research in Education
Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions
An Overview on Application of Machine Learning Techniques in Optical Networks
Today's telecommunication networks have become sources of enormous amounts of
widely heterogeneous data. This information can be retrieved from network
traffic traces, network alarms, signal quality indicators, users' behavioral
data, etc. Advanced mathematical tools are required to extract meaningful
information from these data and take decisions pertaining to the proper
functioning of the networks from the network-generated data. Among these
mathematical tools, Machine Learning (ML) is regarded as one of the most
promising methodological approaches to perform network-data analysis and enable
automated network self-configuration and fault management. The adoption of ML
techniques in the field of optical communication networks is motivated by the
unprecedented growth of network complexity faced by optical networks in the
last few years. Such complexity increase is due to the introduction of a huge
number of adjustable and interdependent system parameters (e.g., routing
configurations, modulation format, symbol rate, coding schemes, etc.) that are
enabled by the usage of coherent transmission/reception technologies, advanced
digital signal processing and compensation of nonlinear effects in optical
fiber propagation. In this paper we provide an overview of the application of
ML to optical communications and networking. We classify and survey relevant
literature dealing with the topic, and we also provide an introductory tutorial
on ML for researchers and practitioners interested in this field. Although a
good number of research papers have recently appeared, the application of ML to
optical networks is still in its infancy: to stimulate further work in this
area, we conclude the paper proposing new possible research directions
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