An Evaluation of a Metaheuristic Artificial Immune System for Household Energy Optimization

[EN] Devices in a smart home should be connected in an optimal way; this helps save energy and money. Among numerous optimization models that can be found in the literature, we would like to highlight artificial immune systems, which use special bioinspired algorithms to solve optimization problems effectively. The aim of this work is to present the application of an artificial immune system in the context of different energy optimization problems. Likewise, a case study is performed in which an artificial immune system is incorporated in order to solve an energy management problem in a domestic environment. A thorough analysis of the different strategies is carried out to demonstrate the ability of an artificial immune system to find a successful optima which satisfies the problem constraints

Scheduling a non-professional indoor football league : a tabu search based approach

This paper deals with a real-life scheduling problem of a non-professional indoor football league. The goal is to develop a schedule for a time-relaxed, double round-robin tournament which avoids close successions of games involving the same team in a limited period of time. This scheduling problem is interesting, because games are not planned in rounds. Instead, each team provides time slots in which they can play a home game, and time slots in which they cannot play at all. We present an integer programming formulation and a heuristic based on tabu search. The core component of this algorithm consists of solving a transportation problem, which schedules (or reschedules) all home games of a team. Our heuristic generates schedules with a quality comparable to those found with IP solvers, however with considerably less computational effort. These schedules were approved by the league organizers, and used in practice for the seasons 2009-2010 till 2016-2017

Application of artificial immune system to domestic energy management problem

[EN] The connection of devices in a smart home should be done optimally, this helps save energy and money. Numerous optimization models have been applied, they are based on fuzzy logic, linear programming or bio-inspired algorithms. The aim of this work is to solve an energy management problem in a domestic environment by applying an artificial immune system. We carried out a thorough analysis of the different strategies that optimize a domestic environment system, in order to demonstrate the ability of an artificial immune system to find a successful optima that satisfies the problem constraints

Control de diversidad en algoritmos genéticos utilizando estrategias multimodales

An optimization process is a kind of process that systematically comes up with solutions that are better than a previous solution used before. Optimization algorithms are used to find solutions which are optimal or near-optimal with respect to some goals, to evaluate design tradeoffs, to assess control systems, to find patterns in data, and to find the optimum values (local or global) of mathematical functions. A genetic algorithm is one of the optimization techniques. In this way, a heuristic search that is inspired by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural evolution. This algorithm reflects the process of natural selection where the fittest individuals are selected for reproduction in order to produce offspring of the next generation which are population algorithms that emulate behavior similar to Darwinian natural selection. Taking into account these issues, this article shows the performance of a genetic algorithm designed, which allows to find several minimums within a function from the control of population diversity. To perform the tests, the algorithm with four different functions was used, with the particularity of having several minima with the same value. Proposed strategy was compared with a conventional genetic algorithm, the result was the conventional one can only find some of the minimums of the function and sometimes only one, while the proposal finds most of the minimumsLa búsqueda de la mejor solución posible a un problema se realiza con procesos de optimización, explorando los valores de los parámetros para los que cierta función objetivo tiene un valor óptimo (local o global). Entre las técnicas de optimización se encuentran los algoritmos genéticos, los cuales son de tipo poblacional o que emulan un comportamiento similar al de la selección natural Darwiniana. Este artículo muestra el desempeño de un algoritmo genético que permite encontrar varios mínimos dentro de una función a partir del control de diversidad de la población. Para realizar las pruebas se utilizó el algoritmo con cuatro diferentes funciones, con la particularidad de tener varios mínimos con el mismo valor. Se comparó esta estrategia propuesta con un algoritmo genético convencional, encontrándose que el convencional solo puede hallar algunos de los mínimos de la función —y en ocasiones solo uno— en tanto que la propuesta encuentra la mayoría de los mínimo

Resolving forward-reverse logistics multi-period model using evolutionary algorithms

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd In the changing competitive landscape and with growing environmental awareness, reverse logistics issues have become prominent in manufacturing organizations. As a result there is an increasing focus on green aspects of the supply chain to reduce environmental impacts and ensure environmental efficiency. This is largely driven by changes made in government rules and regulations with which organizations must comply in order to successfully operate in different regions of the world. Therefore, manufacturing organizations are striving hard to implement environmentally efficient supply chains while simultaneously maximizing their profit to compete in the market. To address the issue, this research studies a forward-reverse logistics model. This paper puts forward a model of a multi-period, multi-echelon, vehicle routing, forward-reverse logistics system. The network considered in the model assumes a fixed number of suppliers, facilities, distributors, customer zones, disassembly locations, re-distributors and second customer zones. The demand levels at customer zones are assumed to be deterministic. The objective of the paper is to maximize the total expected profit and also to obtain an efficient route for the vehicle corresponding to an optimal/near optimal solution. The proposed model is resolved using Artificial Immune System (AIS) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms. The findings show that for the considered model, AIS works better than the PSO. This information is important for a manufacturing organization engaged in reverse logistics programs and in running units efficiently. This paper also contributes to the limited literature on reverse logistics that considers costs and profit as well as vehicle route management

Artificial Immune Systems for Combinatorial Optimisation: A Theoretical Investigation

We focus on the clonal selection inspired computational models of the immune system developed for general-purpose optimisation. Our aim is to highlight when these artificial immune systems (AIS) are more efficient than evolutionary algorithms (EAs). Compared to traditional EAs, AIS use considerably higher mutation rates (hypermutations) for variation, give higher selection probabilities to more recent solutions and lower selection probabilities to older ones (ageing). We consider the standard Opt-IA that includes both of the AIS distinguishing features and argue why it is of greater applicability than other popular AIS. Our first result is the proof that the stop at first constructive mutation version of its hypermutation operator is essential. Without it, the hypermutations cannot optimise any function with an arbitrary polynomial number of optima. Afterwards we show that the hypermutations are exponentially faster than the standard bit mutation operator used in traditional EAs at escaping from local optima of standard benchmark function classes and of the NP-hard Partition problem. If the basin of attraction of the local optima is not too large, then ageing allows even greater speed-ups. For the Cliff benchmark function this can make the difference between exponential and quasi-linear expected time. If the basin of attraction is too large, then ageing can implicitly detect the local optimum and escape it by automatically restarting the search process. The described power of hypermutations and ageing allows us to prove that they guarantee (1+epsilon) approximations for Partition in expected polynomial time for any constant epsilon. These features come at the expense of the hypermutations being a linear factor slower than EAs for standard unimodal benchmark functions and of eliminating the power of ageing at escaping local optima in the complete Opt-IA. We show that hypermutating with inversely proportional rates mitigates such drawbacks at the expense of losing the explorative advantages of the standard operator. We conclude the thesis by designing fast hypermutation operators that are provably a linear factor faster than the traditional ones for the unimodal benchmark functions and Partition, while maintaining explorative power and working in harmony together with ageing

The germinal centre artificial immune system

This thesis deals with the development and evaluation of the Germinal centre artificial immune system (GC-AIS) which is a novel artificial immune system based on advancements in the understanding of the germinal centre reaction of the immune system. The key research questions addressed in this thesis are: can an artificial immune system (AIS) be designed by taking inspiration from recent developments in immunology to tackle multi-objective optimisation problems? How can we incorporate desirable features of the immune system like diversity, parallelism and memory into this proposed AIS? How does the proposed AIS compare with other state of the art techniques in the field of multi-objective optimisation problems? How can we incorporate the learning component of the immune system into the algorithm and investigate the usefulness of memory in dynamic scenarios? The main contributions of the thesis are: • Understanding the behaviour and performance of the proposed GC-AIS on multiobjective optimisation problems and explaining its benefits and drawbacks, by comparing it with simple baseline and state of the art algorithms. • Improving the performance of GC-AIS by incorporating a popular technique from multi-objective optimisation. By overcoming its weaknesses the capability of the improved variant to compete with the state of the art algorithms is evaluated. • Answering key questions on the usefulness of incorporating memory in GC-AIS in a dynamic scenario

Toplu taşıma sistemlerinin evrimsel algoritmalarla optimizasyonu

This study aims to examine, regulate, and update the land transportation of the Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality (EMM), Turkey using computerized calculation techniques. In line with these targets, some critical information has been obtained for study: the number of buses, the number of expeditions, the number of bus lines, and the number and maps of existing routes belonging to EMM. By using the information that has been obtained, this study aims at outlining specific outputs according to the input parameters, such as determining the optimal routes, the average travel, and the journey time. Once all of these situations were considered, various optimization algorithms were used to get the targeted outputs in response to the determined input parameters. In addition, the study found that the problem involved in modeling the land transport network of the EMM is in line with the so-called “traveling salesman problem,” which is a scenario about optimization often discussed in the literature. This study tried to solve this problem by using the genetic algorithm, the clonal selection algorithm, and the DNA computing algorithm. The location data for each bus stops on the bus lines selected for the study were obtained from the EMM, and the distances between these coordinates were obtained by using Google Maps via a Google API. These distances were stored in a distance matrix file and used as input parameters in the application and then were put through optimization algorithms developed initially on the MATLAB platform. The study’s results show that the algorithms developed for the proposed approaches work efficiently and that the distances for the selected bus lines can be shortened.Bu çalışma, Erzurum Büyükşehir Belediyesi'nin (EBB) Türkiye kara ulaşımını bilgisayarlı hesaplama teknikleri kullanarak incelemeyi, düzenlemeyi ve güncellemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu hedefler doğrultusunda, çalışma için bazı önemli bilgiler: otobüs sayısı, sefer sayısı, otobüs hattı sayısı ve EBB’ye ait mevcut güzergâh sayısı ve haritaları elde edilmiştir. Bu çalışma, elde edilen bilgileri kullanarak, optimal rotaların belirlenmesi, ortalama seyahat ve yolculuk süresi gibi girdi parametrelerine göre belirli çıktıların ana hatlarını çizmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Tüm bu durumlar göz önüne alındığında, belirlenen girdi parametrelerine karşılık hedeflenen çıktıları elde etmek için çeşitli optimizasyon algoritmaları kullanılmıştır. Çalışma, EBB’ nin ulaşım ağının modellenmesindeki problemin, literatürde sıklıkla tartışılan optimizasyonla ilgili bir senaryo olan “gezgin satıcı problemi” ile uyumlu olduğunu bulmuştur. Çalışmada genetik algoritma, klonal seçim algoritması ve DNA hesaplama algoritması kullanılarak bu problem çözülmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışmada seçilen otobüs hatlarındaki her bir durak için konum bilgisi EBB'den alınmış ve bu koordinatlar arasındaki mesafeler bir Google API üzerinden Google Maps kullanılarak elde edilmiştir. Bu mesafeler bir mesafe matrisi dosyasında saklanmış ve uygulamada giriş parametreleri olarak kullanılmış daha sonra MATLAB platformunda geliştirilen optimizasyon algoritmalarına aktarılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonuçları, önerilen yaklaşımlar için geliştirilen algoritmaların verimli çalıştığını ve seçilen otobüs hatları için mesafelerin kısaltılabileceğini göstermektedir

Evolutionary Computation

This book presents several recent advances on Evolutionary Computation, specially evolution-based optimization methods and hybrid algorithms for several applications, from optimization and learning to pattern recognition and bioinformatics. This book also presents new algorithms based on several analogies and metafores, where one of them is based on philosophy, specifically on the philosophy of praxis and dialectics. In this book it is also presented interesting applications on bioinformatics, specially the use of particle swarms to discover gene expression patterns in DNA microarrays. Therefore, this book features representative work on the field of evolutionary computation and applied sciences. The intended audience is graduate, undergraduate, researchers, and anyone who wishes to become familiar with the latest research work on this field