Metaheuristic Algorithms for Spatial Multi-Objective Decision Making

Spatial decision making is an everyday activity, common to individuals and organizations. However, recently there is an increasing interest in the importance of spatial decision-making systems, as more decision-makers with concerns about sustainability, social, economic, environmental, land use planning, and transportation issues discover the benefits of geographical information. Many spatial decision problems are regarded as optimization problems, which involve a large set of feasible alternatives, multiple conflicting objectives that are difficult and complex to solve. Hence, Multi-Objective Optimization methods (MOO)—metaheuristic algorithms integrated with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are appealing to be powerful tools in these regards, yet their implementation in spatial context is still challenging. In this thesis, various metaheuristic algorithms are adopted and improved to solve complex spatial problems. Disaster management and urban planning are used as case studies of this thesis.These case studies are explored in the four papers that are part of this thesis. In paper I, four metaheuristic algorithms have been implemented on the same spatial multi-objective problem—evacuation planning, to investigate their performance and potential. The findings show that all tested algorithms were effective in solving the problem, although in general, some had higher performance, while others showed the potential of being flexible to be modified to fit better to the problem. In the same context, paper II identified the effectiveness of the Multi-objective Artificial Bee Colony (MOABC) algorithm when improved to solve the evacuation problem. In paper III, we proposed a multi-objective optimization approach for urban evacuation planning that considered three spatial objectives which were optimized using an improved Multi-Objective Cuckoo Search algorithm (MOCS). Both improved algorithms (MOABC and MOCS) proved to be efficient in solving evacuation planning when compared to their standard version and other algorithms. Moreover, Paper IV proposed an urban land-use allocation model that involved three spatial objectives and proposed an improved Non-dominated Sorting Biogeography-based Optimization algorithm (NSBBO) to solve the problem efficiently and effectively.Overall, the work in this thesis demonstrates that different metaheuristic algorithms have the potential to change the way spatial decision problems are structured and can improve the transparency and facilitate decision-makers to map solutions and interactively modify decision preferences through trade-offs between multiple objectives. Moreover, the obtained results can be used in a systematic way to develop policy recommendations. From the perspective of GIS - Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) research, the thesis contributes to spatial optimization modelling and extended knowledge on the application of metaheuristic algorithms. The insights from this thesis could also benefit the development and practical implementation of other Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to enhance the capabilities of GIS for tackling complex spatial multi-objective decision problems in the future

An efficient cuckoo-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm for multiobjective short-term hydrothermal scheduling

This paper proposes an efficient Cuckoo-Inspired Meta-Heuristic Algorithm (CIMHA) for solving multi-objective short-term hydrothermal scheduling (ST-HTS) problem. The objective is to simultaneously minimize the total cost and emission of thermal units while all constraints such as power balance, water discharge, and generation limitations must be satisfied. The proposed CIMHA is a newly developed meta-heuristic algorithm inspired by the intelligent reproduction strategy of the cuckoo bird. It is efficient for solving optimization problems with complicated objective and constraints because the method has few control parameters. The proposed method has been tested on different systems with various numbers of objective functions, and the obtained results have been compared to those from other methods available in the literature. The result comparisons have indicated that the proposed method is more efficient than many other methods for the test systems in terms of total cost, total emission, and computational time. Therefore, the proposed CIMHA can be a favorable method for solving the multi-objective ST-HTS problems

Overview of Multiobjective Optimization Methods in in Silico Metabolic Engineering

Multiobjective optimization requires of finding a trade-off between multiple objectives. However, most of the objectives are contradict towards each other, thus makes it difficult for the traditional approaches to find a solution that satisfies all objectives. Fortunately, the problems are able to solve by the aid of Pareto methods. Meanwhile, in in silico Metabolic Engineering, the identification of reaction knockout strategies that produce mutant strains with a permissible growth rate and product rate of desired metabolites is still hindered. Previously, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) has been successfully used in determining the reaction knockout strategies. Nevertheless, most methods work by optimizing one objective function, which is growth rate or production rate. Furthermore, in bioprocesses, it involves multiple and conflicting objectives. In this review, we aim to show the different multiobjective evolutionary optimization methods developed for tackling the multiple and conflicting objectives in in silico metabolic engineering, as well as the approaches in multiobjective optimization

Digital Filter Design Using Improved Artificial Bee Colony Algorithms

Digital filters are often used in digital signal processing applications. The design objective of a digital filter is to find the optimal set of filter coefficients, which satisfies the desired specifications of magnitude and group delay responses. Evolutionary algorithms are population-based meta-heuristic algorithms inspired by the biological behaviors of species. Compared to gradient-based optimization algorithms such as steepest descent and Newton’s like methods, these bio-inspired algorithms have the advantages of not getting stuck at local optima and being independent of the starting point in the solution space. The limitations of evolutionary algorithms include the presence of control parameters, problem specific tuning procedure, premature convergence and slower convergence rate. The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a swarm-based search meta-heuristic algorithm inspired by the foraging behaviors of honey bee colonies, with the benefit of a relatively fewer control parameters. In its original form, the ABC algorithm has certain limitations such as low convergence rate, and insufficient balance between exploration and exploitation in the search equations. In this dissertation, an ABC-AMR algorithm is proposed by incorporating an adaptive modification rate (AMR) into the original ABC algorithm to increase convergence rate by adjusting the balance between exploration and exploitation in the search equations through an adaptive determination of the number of parameters to be updated in every iteration. A constrained ABC-AMR algorithm is also developed for solving constrained optimization problems.There are many real-world problems requiring simultaneous optimizations of more than one conflicting objectives. Multiobjective (MO) optimization produces a set of feasible solutions called the Pareto front instead of a single optimum solution. For multiobjective optimization, if a decision maker’s preferences can be incorporated during the optimization process, the search process can be confined to the region of interest instead of searching the entire region. In this dissertation, two algorithms are developed for such incorporation. The first one is a reference-point-based MOABC algorithm in which a decision maker’s preferences are included in the optimization process as the reference point. The second one is a physical-programming-based MOABC algorithm in which physical programming is used for setting the region of interest of a decision maker. In this dissertation, the four developed algorithms are applied to solve digital filter design problems. The ABC-AMR algorithm is used to design Types 3 and 4 linear phase FIR differentiators, and the results are compared to those obtained by the original ABC algorithm, three improved ABC algorithms, and the Parks-McClellan algorithm. The constrained ABC-AMR algorithm is applied to the design of sparse Type 1 linear phase FIR filters of filter orders 60, 70 and 80, and the results are compared to three state-of-the-art design methods. The reference-point-based multiobjective ABC algorithm is used to design of asymmetric lowpass, highpass, bandpass and bandstop FIR filters, and the results are compared to those obtained by the preference-based multiobjective differential evolution algorithm. The physical-programming-based multiobjective ABC algorithm is used to design IIR lowpass, highpass and bandpass filters, and the results are compared to three state-of-the-art design methods. Based on the obtained design results, the four design algorithms are shown to be competitive as compared to the state-of-the-art design methods

Stochastic Fractal Based Multiobjective Fruit Fly Optimization

The fruit fly optimization algorithm (FOA) is a global optimization algorithm inspired by the foraging behavior of a fruit fly swarm. In this study, a novel stochastic fractal model based fruit fly optimization algorithm is proposed for multiobjective optimization. A food source generating method based on a stochastic fractal with an adaptive parameter updating strategy is introduced to improve the convergence performance of the fruit fly optimization algorithm. To deal with multiobjective optimization problems, the Pareto domination concept is integrated into the selection process of fruit fly optimization and a novel multiobjective fruit fly optimization algorithm is then developed. Similarly to most of other multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs), an external elitist archive is utilized to preserve the nondominated solutions found so far during the evolution, and a normalized nearest neighbor distance based density estimation strategy is adopted to keep the diversity of the external elitist archive. Eighteen benchmarks are used to test the performance of the stochastic fractal based multiobjective fruit fly optimization algorithm (SFMOFOA). Numerical results show that the SFMOFOA is able to well converge to the Pareto fronts of the test benchmarks with good distributions. Compared with four state-of-the-art methods, namely, the non-dominated sorting generic algorithm (NSGA-II), the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm (SPEA2), multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), and multiobjective self-adaptive differential evolution (MOSADE), the proposed SFMOFOA has better or competitive multiobjective optimization performance

General Pattern Search Applied to the Optimization of the Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

The literature has different implementations and results for the mono-objective and multiobjective optimization of the shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE), most of them using evolutionary computation. However, there is a gap to find the optimal solution of this problem through direct search methods (numerical optimization). So, this paper uses the Pattern Search algorithm of MATLAB toolbox applied to this case study