A new VRPPD model and a hybrid heuristic solution approach for e-tailing

We analyze a business model for e-supermarkets to enable multi-product sourcing capacity through co-opetition (collaborative competition). The logistics aspect of our approach is to design and execute a network system where “premium” goods are acquired from vendors at multiple locations in the supply network and delivered to customers. Our specific goals are to: (i) investigate the role of premium product offerings in creating critical mass and profit; (ii) develop a model for the multiple-pickup single-delivery vehicle routing problem in the presence of multiple vendors; and (iii) propose a hybrid solution approach. To solve the problem introduced in this paper, we develop a hybrid metaheuristic approach that uses a Genetic Algorithm for vendor selection and allocation, and a modified savings algorithm for the capacitated VRP with multiple pickup, single delivery and time windows (CVRPMPDTW). The proposed Genetic Algorithm guides the search for optimal vendor pickup location decisions, and for each generated solution in the genetic population, a corresponding CVRPMPDTW is solved using the savings algorithm. We validate our solution approach against published VRPTW solutions and also test our algorithm with Solomon instances modified for CVRPMPDTW

Nash Game Model for Optimizing Market Strategies, Configuration of Platform Products in a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) Supply Chain for a Product Family

This paper discusses how a manufacturer and its retailers interact with each other to optimize their product marketing strategies, platform product configuration and inventory policies in a VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) supply chain. The manufacturer procures raw materials from multiple suppliers to produce a family of products sold to multiple retailers. Multiple types of products are substitutable each other to end customers. The manufacturer makes its decision on raw materials’ procurement, platform product configuration, product replenishment policies to retailers with VMI, price discount rate, and advertising investment to maximize its profit. Retailers in turn consider the optimal local advertising and retail price to maximize their profits. This problem is modeled as a dual simultaneous non-cooperative game (as a Nash game) model with two sub-games. One is between the retailers serving in competing retail markets and the other is between the manufacturer and the retailers. This paper combines analytical, iterative and GA (genetic algorithm) methods to develop a game solution algorithm to find the Nash equilibrium. A numerical example is conducted to test the proposed model and algorithm, and gain managerial implications.supply chain management;nash game model;vendor managed inventory

Improved detection of Probe Request Attacks : Using Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithm

The Media Access Control (MAC) layer of the wireless protocol, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11, is based on the exchange of request and response messages. Probe Request Flooding Attacks (PRFA) are devised based on this design flaw to reduce network performance or prevent legitimate users from accessing network resources. The vulnerability is amplified due to clear beacon, probe request and probe response frames. The research is to detect PRFA of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) using a Supervised Feedforward Neural Network (NN). The NN converged outstandingly with train, valid, test sample percentages 70, 15, 15 and hidden neurons 20. The effectiveness of an Intruder Detection System depends on its prediction accuracy. This paper presents optimisation of the NN using Genetic Algorithms (GA). GAs sought to maximise the performance of the model based on Linear Regression (R) and generated R > 0.95. Novelty of this research lies in the fact that the NN accepts user and attacker training data captured separately. Hence, security administrators do not have to perform the painstaking task of manually identifying individual frames for labelling prior training. The GA provides a reliable NN model and recognises the behaviour of the NN for diverse configurations

Learning to infer: RL-based search for DNN primitive selection on Heterogeneous Embedded Systems

Deep Learning is increasingly being adopted by industry for computer vision applications running on embedded devices. While Convolutional Neural Networks' accuracy has achieved a mature and remarkable state, inference latency and throughput are a major concern especially when targeting low-cost and low-power embedded platforms. CNNs' inference latency may become a bottleneck for Deep Learning adoption by industry, as it is a crucial specification for many real-time processes. Furthermore, deployment of CNNs across heterogeneous platforms presents major compatibility issues due to vendor-specific technology and acceleration libraries. In this work, we present QS-DNN, a fully automatic search based on Reinforcement Learning which, combined with an inference engine optimizer, efficiently explores through the design space and empirically finds the optimal combinations of libraries and primitives to speed up the inference of CNNs on heterogeneous embedded devices. We show that, an optimized combination can achieve 45x speedup in inference latency on CPU compared to a dependency-free baseline and 2x on average on GPGPU compared to the best vendor library. Further, we demonstrate that, the quality of results and time "to-solution" is much better than with Random Search and achieves up to 15x better results for a short-time search

Multi crteria decision making and its applications : a literature review

This paper presents current techniques used in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and their applications. Two basic approaches for MCDM, namely Artificial Intelligence MCDM (AIMCDM) and Classical MCDM (CMCDM) are discussed and investigated. Recent articles from international journals related to MCDM are collected and analyzed to find which approach is more common than the other in MCDM. Also, which area these techniques are applied to. Those articles are appearing in journals for the year 2008 only. This paper provides evidence that currently, both AIMCDM and CMCDM are equally common in MCDM

Chance Constraint Based Multi-objective Vendor Selection Using NSGAII

AbstractSuccess of a buying firm depends largely on the suitable selection of its vendors as it ensures timely delivery of goods to support the firm's output. The paper presents a Stochastic Vendor Selection Problem (SVSP) in the presence of uncertainties associated with operational risks. The problem is modeled using Chance constraint approach and solved using NSGA II. A case example is presented as an illustration

Single item stochastic lot sizing problem considering capital flow and business overdraft

This paper introduces capital flow to the single item stochastic lot sizing problem. A retailer can leverage business overdraft to deal with unexpected capital shortage, but needs to pay interest if its available balance goes below zero. A stochastic dynamic programming model maximizing expected final capital increment is formulated to solve the problem to optimality. We then investigate the performance of four controlling policies: ($R, Q$), ($R, S$), ($s, S$) and ($s$, $\overline{Q}$, $S$); for these policies, we adopt simulation-genetic algorithm to obtain approximate values of the controlling parameters. Finally, a simulation-optimization heuristic is also employed to solve this problem. Computational comparisons among these approaches show that policy $(s, S)$ and policy $(s, \overline{Q}, S)$ provide performance close to that of optimal solutions obtained by stochastic dynamic programming, while simulation-optimization heuristic offers advantages in terms of computational efficiency. Our numerical tests also show that capital availability as well as business overdraft interest rate can substantially affect the retailer's optimal lot sizing decisions.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure