45,249 research outputs found
A variable neighborhood search simheuristic for project portfolio selection under uncertainty
With limited nancial resources, decision-makers in rms and governments face the task of selecting the best portfolio of projects to invest in. As the pool of project proposals increases and more realistic constraints are considered, the problem becomes NP-hard. Thus, metaheuristics have been employed for solving large instances of the project portfolio selection problem (PPSP). However, most of the existing works do not account for uncertainty. This paper contributes to close this gap by analyzing a stochastic version of the PPSP: the goal is to maximize the expected net present value of the inversion, while considering random cash ows and discount rates in future periods, as well as a rich set of constraints including the maximum risk allowed. To solve this stochastic PPSP, a simulation-optimization algorithm is introduced. Our approach integrates a variable neighborhood search metaheuristic with Monte Carlo simulation. A series of computational experiments contribute to validate our approach and illustrate how the solutions vary as the level of uncertainty increases
Quantile-based optimization under uncertainties using adaptive Kriging surrogate models
Uncertainties are inherent to real-world systems. Taking them into account is
crucial in industrial design problems and this might be achieved through
reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) techniques. In this paper, we
propose a quantile-based approach to solve RBDO problems. We first transform
the safety constraints usually formulated as admissible probabilities of
failure into constraints on quantiles of the performance criteria. In this
formulation, the quantile level controls the degree of conservatism of the
design. Starting with the premise that industrial applications often involve
high-fidelity and time-consuming computational models, the proposed approach
makes use of Kriging surrogate models (a.k.a. Gaussian process modeling).
Thanks to the Kriging variance (a measure of the local accuracy of the
surrogate), we derive a procedure with two stages of enrichment of the design
of computer experiments (DoE) used to construct the surrogate model. The first
stage globally reduces the Kriging epistemic uncertainty and adds points in the
vicinity of the limit-state surfaces describing the system performance to be
attained. The second stage locally checks, and if necessary, improves the
accuracy of the quantiles estimated along the optimization iterations.
Applications to three analytical examples and to the optimal design of a car
body subsystem (minimal mass under mechanical safety constraints) show the
accuracy and the remarkable efficiency brought by the proposed procedure
Hybrid computer Monte-Carlo techniques
Hybrid analog-digital computer systems for Monte Carlo method application
The Coupled Electronic-Ionic Monte Carlo Simulation Method
Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods such as Variational Monte Carlo, Diffusion
Monte Carlo or Path Integral Monte Carlo are the most accurate and general
methods for computing total electronic energies. We will review methods we have
developed to perform QMC for the electrons coupled to a classical Monte Carlo
simulation of the ions. In this method, one estimates the Born-Oppenheimer
energy E(Z) where Z represents the ionic degrees of freedom. That estimate of
the energy is used in a Metropolis simulation of the ionic degrees of freedom.
Important aspects of this method are how to deal with the noise, which QMC
method and which trial function to use, how to deal with generalized boundary
conditions on the wave function so as to reduce the finite size effects. We
discuss some advantages of the CEIMC method concerning how the quantum effects
of the ionic degrees of freedom can be included and how the boundary conditions
can be integrated over. Using these methods, we have performed simulations of
liquid H2 and metallic H on a parallel computer.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Gaussian process hyper-parameter estimation using parallel asymptotically independent Markov sampling
Gaussian process emulators of computationally expensive computer codes
provide fast statistical approximations to model physical processes. The
training of these surrogates depends on the set of design points chosen to run
the simulator. Due to computational cost, such training set is bound to be
limited and quantifying the resulting uncertainty in the hyper-parameters of
the emulator by uni-modal distributions is likely to induce bias. In order to
quantify this uncertainty, this paper proposes a computationally efficient
sampler based on an extension of Asymptotically Independent Markov Sampling, a
recently developed algorithm for Bayesian inference. Structural uncertainty of
the emulator is obtained as a by-product of the Bayesian treatment of the
hyper-parameters. Additionally, the user can choose to perform stochastic
optimisation to sample from a neighbourhood of the Maximum a Posteriori
estimate, even in the presence of multimodality. Model uncertainty is also
acknowledged through numerical stabilisation measures by including a nugget
term in the formulation of the probability model. The efficiency of the
proposed sampler is illustrated in examples where multi-modal distributions are
encountered. For the purpose of reproducibility, further development, and use
in other applications the code used to generate the examples is freely
available for download at https://github.com/agarbuno/paims_codesComment: Computational Statistics \& Data Analysis, Volume 103, November 201
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