Nonessential functionals in multiobjective optimal control problems

We address the problem of obtaining well-defined criteria for multiple criteria optimal control problems. Necessary and sufficient conditions for an objective functional to be nonessential are proved. The results provide effective tools for determining nonessential objectives in multiobjective optimal control problems

Nonessential Functionals in Multiobjective Optimal Control Problems

We address the problem of obtaining well-defined criteria for multiobjective optimal control systems. Necessary and sufficient conditions for an optimal control functional to be nonessential are proved. The results provide effective tools for determining nonessential objectives in vector-valued optimal control problems.Comment: Presented at the 5th Junior European Meeting on Control & Information Technology (JEM'06), September 20-22, 2006, Tallinn, Estoni

R.Fuller, Interdependence in fuzzy multiple objective programming,

Abstract In multiple objective programs [MOP], application functions are established to measure the degree of fulfillment of the decision maker's requirements (achievement of goals, nearness to an ideal point, satisfaction, etc.) about the objective functions (see e.g

Urban land-use planning using Geographical Information System and Analytical Hierarchy Process : case study Dhaka city

Urban land-use planning, which is a useful tool for the sustainable development of a city, is a complex decision making process. However, the modern GIS technologies facilitate such complex jobs in two ways – (i) GIS allows to work with large numbr of datasets, (ii) a number of methods, techniques or models could be embeded in GIS for land-use suitability analysis. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is a kind of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique, could be used for urban land-use planning with support of GIS technology. The aim of this thesis is preparing urban land-use planning using GIS and AHP, where the case study is Dhaka city. Dhaka, which is one of the fastest growing mega cities in the world and is the capital city of Bangladesh, is facing acute pressure of increasing population and unplanned urbanization, despite, a number of planning interventions have been taken for the planned development of the city. Recent Detail Area Planning (DAP) for Dhaka city was a cumbersome job but brought little benefits. DAP primarily prepared a land-use plan at city scale using GIS technology. Although huge resources and times were used to build the GIS database, it had promlems on (i) specifying data requirements, (ii) ensuring quality database (having topological rules, elimination of sliver polygons etc.) and (iii) using the database for spatial analysis in view to make better planning decision. In this connection, this thesis tried to conceptualize a model to build geographical database for urban land-use planning to address first two problems and applied GIS-based AHP technique for more sophisticated analysis (problem-iii). After literature review and selection of the study area (Group-E of DAP), the study set a number of criteria through sharing experts’ opinions. Based on those criteria the collected GIS data was transformed into the Geodatabase, where the geodatabase was conceptualized using Unified Modelling Language (UML). Five experts’ opinions were shared and further literature reviews were done for calculating Eigen Values using AHP methodological operations. The Eigen Values show the degree of priority of the criteria. Using Eigen Values, raster criterion maps were prepared from data available in the geodatabase. These criterion maps were overlaid to develop a composite map which was later classified to prepare suitability map. The research result shows that highly suitable area (13%) should be used for urban residential zone; moderately suitable area (35%) should be designated as mixed use zone; low suitable area (42%) should be reserved for agricultural use and open spaces; and not suitable area (10%) should be protected from any types of activities except agriculture. The research approached an urban land-use planning at a regional scale. The research results were also validated with Detail Area Plan of Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan package in some order. Such validation concludes that Geographical Information System based Analytical Hierarchy Process can be applied successfully for preparing urban land-use planning at the regional level.Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing mega cities in the world. The city is facing acute pressure of increasing population and unplanned urbanization. Since 1959 a number of planning mechanisms have been formulated to promote planned growth of the city. But the city never experienced planned development. Current state of city development is quite unsustainable in nature. Urban land-use planning is a useful mechanism for sustainable city development. At the same time, land-use planning is a complex decision making process as such planning approach encompasses a number of socio-economic, physical and environmental criteria. Modern Geographical Information System (GIS) technology is very much helpful to incorporate these criteria and allow improved decision making process to prepare sustainable planning. Different Multi-Criteria Decision Making Models (MCDM), like, Analytical Hierarchy Model (AHP), can be applied fruitfully with the support of GIS to ease the complex decision making process of spatial planning, e.g., land-use planning. So, the aim of the thesis is to prepare urban land-use planning using GIS and AHP in context of Dhaka city. The thesis used both primary and secondary data. Experts’ opinions were shared to select the criteria for land-use planning and to fix the level of preferences of each criterion. The objective of selecting criteria and their level of preferences were to identify the suitability of areas for residential, industrial, commercial development and for protecting agricultural land. In this purpose, AHP technique was used so that the criteria can be selected easily in hierarchy order, the preferences level can be fixed with consistency and finally, the suitability of land-use can be ranked using GIS. The ranking of suitability allow deciding which land is more suitable for which category of development or for which development control. The research result shows that – The Highly Suitable areas are featured by vacant land, high elevation, no earthquake risk, and well connected with utilities and community services. Hard urban development can be promoted in these areas. These areas should be used for urban residential areas to facilitate new housing development. Moderately Suitable areas are featured by rural homestead, vacant land, existing residential use, high elevation, minimum earthquake risk, close to market places and connected with utilities and community services. These areas have been proposed as mixed-use area. This mixed-use area has potentiality of housing, commercial and industrial development. Low Suitable areas are predominated by agricultural and low lying flood flow zones. These areas should be free from major development. The lands here are close to fault lines. So, the places are also prone to earthquake risk. Here development controlling mechanism is earnest necessary. Agricultural lands should be protected as Bangladesh is facing acute shortages of agricultural land. However, as these areas fall within the Greater Dhaka Metropolitan Area jurisdiction, so, some parcels of land in these areas could be used for sports grounds, parks and other recreational open spaces as a requirement of city’s civic amenities. The Not Suitable areas are featured by agricultural uses, restricted areas (e.g. military camp) and high earthquake risk. Any type of use other than agriculture should be protected in these areas

Decision Making of Environmental Engineers on Project Selection

Some environmental engineers do not understand how to perceive profitable opportunities in redeveloping the large number of contaminated brownfield sites in New Jersey. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to find effective decision-making strategies that help environmental engineers acquire profitable environmental redevelopment projects. The target population consisted of 4 environmental engineers in an environmental organization in Camden County, New Jersey who possessed proven decision-making strategies that helped them acquire profitable environmental redevelopment projects in the past 5 years. The conceptual framework for this study was the multiple criteria decision method (MCDM). Semistructured interviews were conducted with the engineers, and company documents were additional sources of data gathered. Triangulation and member checking were used to ensure the trustworthiness of interpretations. Five themes emerged from the analyses relating to strategies for an MCDM assessment in project management, a go/no-go assessment in project selections, education and training, ethics as an organizational value, and project management. These findings may lead to social change in Camden County, New Jersey community organizations, such as schools, daycare centers, and local businesses, which may benefit from the knowledge and safety recommendations of remediation decision making. Furthermore, these findings may provide opportunities for environment organizations to teach and train stakeholders on environmental processes while providing profitable opportunities to shareholders through sustainable practices

A Fuzzy Modelling of a Hybrid MCDM Method for Supplier Selection = Egy hibrid MCDM-módszer fuzzy modellezése a beszállítók kiválasztásához

This article examines the significance of supplier selection in the procurement process, which has grown in prominence as a result of globalization and outsourcing. When selecting the best suppliers, supply chain managers must consider a variety of quantitative and qualitative aspects, as these have a substantial impact on supply chain performance. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches can help in this process by taking into account many competing considerations. However, due to uncertainties and ambiguity, supplier selection is a complex process, and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approaches can be used to determine the best supplier for the company's key operations. This research suggests a hybrid MCDM strategy that makes use of fuzzy modeling to help with complex decision-making processes. Organizations can improve their supply chain performance by selecting the best supplier based on numerous parameters such as cost, quality, delivery time, and supplier reputation. Jelen tanulmány a beszállítók kiválasztásának jelentőségét vizsgálja a beszerzési folyamatban, amely a globalizáció és a kiszervezés következtében egyre nagyobb jelentőségre tett szert. A legjobb beszállítók kiválasztásakor az ellátási lánc vezetőinek számos mennyiségi és minőségi szempontot kell figyelembe venniük, mivel ezek jelentős hatással vannak az ellátási lánc teljesítményére. A többkritériumos döntéshozatal (MCDM) megközelítések számos egymással versengő szempont figyelembevételével segíthetnek ebben a folyamatban. A bizonytalanságok és a többértelműség miatt azonban a beszállító kiválasztása összetett folyamat, és a fuzzy többkritériumú döntéshozatali megközelítések segítségével meghatározható a vállalat kulcsfontosságú műveleteihez legmegfelelőbb beszállító. Ez a kutatás egy hibrid MCDM stratégiát javasol, amely a fuzzy modellezést használja fel a komplex döntéshozatali folyamatok segítésére. A szervezetek számos paraméter, például a költségek, a minőség, a szállítási idő és a beszállító hírneve alapján a legjobb beszállító kiválasztásával javíthatják ellátási láncuk teljesítményét

Genetic and Swarm Algorithms for Optimizing the Control of Building HVAC Systems Using Real Data: A Comparative Study.

Buildings consume a considerable amount of electrical energy, the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system being the most demanding. Saving energy and maintaining comfort still challenge scientists as they conflict. The control of HVAC systems can be improved by modeling their behavior, which is nonlinear, complex, and dynamic and works in uncertain contexts. Scientific literature shows that Soft Computing techniques require fewer computing resources but at the expense of some controlled accuracy loss. Metaheuristics-search-based algorithms show positive results, although further research will be necessary to resolve new challenging multi-objective optimization problems. This article compares the performance of selected genetic and swarmintelligence- based algorithms with the aim of discerning their capabilities in the field of smart buildings. MOGA, NSGA-II/III, OMOPSO, SMPSO, and Random Search, as benchmarking, are compared in hypervolume, generational distance, ε-indicator, and execution time. Real data from the Building Management System of Teatro Real de Madrid have been used to train a data model used for the multiple objective calculations. The novelty brought by the analysis of the different proposed dynamic optimization algorithms in the transient time of an HVAC system also includes the addition, to the conventional optimization objectives of comfort and energy efficiency, of the coefficient of performance, and of the rate of change in ambient temperature, aiming to extend the equipment lifecycle and minimize the overshooting effect when passing to the steady state. The optimization works impressively well in energy savings, although the results must be balanced with other real considerations, such as realistic constraints on chillers’ operational capacity. The intuitive visualization of the performance of the two families of algorithms in a real multi-HVAC system increases the novelty of this proposal.post-print888 K

Computer Selection For A Company With Electre And Fuzzy AHP Methods

Bu çalışmanın amacı, işletmelerde karar vermeye yardımcı olmak için ELECTRE (Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la Realité) ve Bulanık Analitik Hiyerarşi Prosesi (BAHP) yöntemlerinin bir arada kullanılmasına dayanan bir yaklaşım sunmaktır. Bu yaklaşımda, klasik AHP yönteminin karar vericilerin sübjektif yargılarını ele almada yetersiz olmasından dolayı kriterlerin ağırlıklarının belirlenmesinde, BAHP yönteminden yararlanılmaktadır. Daha sonra alternatiflerin sıralanmasında ELECTRE yöntemi kullanılmaktadır. Uygulama bölümünde ise sunulan bu yaklaşımın uygulanabilirliğini göstermek için bir işletmede dizüstü bilgisayar seçim problemi ele alınmıştır.The aim of this study is to propose an approach based on ELECTRE (Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la Realité) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to help decision making in companies. In this approach the weights of the criteria are determined with FAHP method since classical AHP can not take into consideration the subjectivity and uncertainty in the decision making process. And then ELECTRE method is used for ranking the alternatives. In the application section, computer selection problem of a company is given in order to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach

A contribution to support decision making in energy/water sypply chain optimisation

The seeking of process sustainability forces enterprises to change their operations. Additionally, the industrial globalization implies a very dynamic market that, among other issues, promotes the enterprises competition. Therefore, the efficient control and use of their Key Performance Indicators, including profitability, cost reduction, demand satisfaction and environmental impact associated to the development of new products, is a significant challenge. All the above indicators can be efficiently controlled through the Supply Chain Management. Thus, companies work towards the optimization of their individual operations under competitive environments taking advantage of the flexibility provided by the virtually inexistent world market restrictions. This is achieved by the coordination of the resource flows, across all the entities and echelons belonging to the system network. Nevertheless, such coordination is significantly complicated if considering the presence of uncertainty and even more if seeking for a win-win outcome. The purpose of this thesis is extending the current decision making strategies to expedite these tasks in industrial processes. Such a contribution is based on the development of efficient mathematical models that allows coordinating large amount of information synchronizing the production and distribution tasks in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria. This thesis starts presents an overview of the requirements of sustainable production processes, describing and analyzing the current methods and tools used and identifying the most relevant open issues. All the above is always within the framework of Process System Engineering literature. The second part of this thesis is focused in stressing the current Multi-Objective solution strategies. During this part, first explores how the profitability of the Supply Chain can be enhanced by considering simultaneously multiple objectives under demand uncertainties. Particularly, solution frameworks have been proposed in which different multi-criteria decision making strategies have been combined with stochastic approaches. Furthermore, additional performance indicators (including financial and operational ones) have been included in the same solution framework to evaluate its capabilities. This framework was also applied to decentralized supply chains problems in order to explore its capabilities to produce solution that improves the performances of each one of the SC entities simultaneously. Consequently, a new generalized mathematical formulation which integrates many performance indicators in the production process within a supply chain is efficiently solved. Afterwards, the third part of the thesis extends the proposed solution framework to address the uncertainty management. Particularly, the consideration of different types and sources of uncertainty (e.g. external and internal ones) where considered, through the implementation of preventive approaches. This part also explores the use of solution strategies that efficiently selects the number of scenarios that represent the uncertainty conditions. Finally, the importance and effect of each uncertainty source over the process performance is detailed analyzed through the use of surrogate models that promote the sensitivity analysis of those uncertainties. The third part of this thesis is focused on the integration of the above multi-objective and uncertainty approaches for the optimization of a sustainable Supply Chain. Besides the integration of different solution approaches, this part also considers the integration of hierarchical decision levels, by the exploitation of mathematical models that assess the consequences of considering simultaneously design and planning decisions under centralized and decentralized Supply Chains. Finally, the last part of this thesis provides the final conclusions and further work to be developed.La globalización industrial genera un ambiente dinámico en los mercados que, entre otras cosas, promueve la competencia entre corporaciones. Por lo tanto, el uso eficiente de las los indicadores de rendimiento, incluyendo rentabilidad, satisfacción de la demanda y en general el impacto ambiental, representa un area de oportunidad importante. El control de estos indicadores tiene un efecto positivo si se combinan con la gestión de cadena de suministro. Por lo tanto, las compañías buscan definir sus operaciones para permanecer activas dentro de un ambiente competitivo, tomando en cuenta las restricciones en el mercado mundial. Lo anterior puede ser logrado mediante la coordinación de los flujos de recursos a través de todas las entidades y escalones pertenecientes a la red del sistema. Sin embargo, dicha coordinación se complica significativamente si se quiere considerar la presencia de incertidumbre, y aún más, si se busca exclusivamente un ganar-ganar. El propósito de esta tesis es extender el alcance de las estrategias de toma de decisiones con el fin de facilitar estas tareas dentro de procesos industriales. Estas contribuciones se basan en el desarrollo de modelos matemáticos eficientes que permitan coordinar grandes cantidades de información sincronizando las tareas de producción y distribución en términos económicos, ambientales y sociales. Esta tesis inicia presentando una visión global de los requerimientos de un proceso de producción sostenible, describiendo y analizando los métodos y herramientas actuales así como identificando las áreas de oportunidad más relevantes dentro del marco de ingeniería de procesos La segunda parte se enfoca en enfatizar las capacidades de las estrategias de solución multi-objetivo, durante la cual, se explora el mejoramiento de la rentabilidad de la cadena de suministro considerando múltiples objetivos bajo incertidumbres en la demanda. Particularmente, diferentes marcos de solución han sido propuestos en los que varias estrategias de toma de decisión multi-criterio han sido combinadas con aproximaciones estocásticas. Por otra parte, indicadores de rendimiento (incluyendo financiero y operacional) han sido incluidos en el mismo marco de solución para evaluar sus capacidades. Este marco fue aplicado también a problemas de cadenas de suministro descentralizados con el fin de explorar sus capacidades de producir soluciones que mejoran simultáneamente el rendimiento para cada uno de las entidades dentro de la cadena de suministro. Consecuentemente, una nueva formulación que integra varios indicadores de rendimiento en los procesos de producción fue propuesta y validada. La tercera parte de la tesis extiende el marco de solución propuesto para abordar el manejo de incertidumbres. Particularmente, la consideración de diferentes tipos y fuentes de incertidumbre (p.ej. externos e internos) fueron considerados, mediante la implementación de aproximaciones preventivas. Esta parte también explora el uso de estrategias de solución que elige eficientemente el número de escenarios necesario que representan las condiciones inciertas. Finalmente, la importancia y efecto de cada una de las fuentes de incertidumbre sobre el rendimiento del proceso es analizado en detalle mediante el uso de meta modelos que promueven el análisis de sensibilidad de dichas incertidumbres. La tercera parte de esta tesis se enfoca en la integración de las metodologías de multi-objetivo e incertidumbre anteriormente expuestas para la optimización de cadenas de suministro sostenibles. Además de la integración de diferentes métodos. Esta parte también considera la integración de diferentes niveles jerárquicos de decisión, mediante el aprovechamiento de modelos matemáticos que evalúan lasconsecuencias de considerar simultáneamente las decisiones de diseño y planeación de una cadena de suministro centralizada y descentralizada. La parte final de la tesis detalla las conclusiones y el trabajo a futuro necesario sobre esta línea de investigaciónPostprint (published version