Bi-Criteria Simulated Annealing Algorithms for the Robust University Course Timetabling Problem

A bi-criteria version of the curriculum-based university timetabling problem of ITC-2007 is solved using a multi-objective simulated annealing (MOSA) algorithm that identifies an approximation to the optimal Pareto front. The two criteria are the penalty function as defined in ITC-2007 and a robustness function. The robustness function assumes one disruption occurs in the form of a period of an event (lecture) becoming infeasible for that event. The parameters of the MOSA algorithm are set using the Iterated FRace algorithm and then its performance is tested against a hybrid MOGA algorithm developed by the authors. The results show that MOSA provides better approximation fronts than the hybrid MOGA

Multi-Objective Simulated Annealing for Hyper-Parameter Optimization in Convolutional Neural Networks

In this study, we model a CNN hyper-parameter optimization problem as a bi-criteria optimization problem, where the first objective being the classification accuracy and the second objective being the computational complexity which is measured in terms of the number of floating point operations. For this bi-criteria optimization problem, we develop a Multi-Objective Simulated Annealing (MOSA) algorithm for obtaining high-quality solutions in terms of both objectives. CIFAR-10 is selected as the benchmark dataset, and the MOSA trade-off fronts obtained for this dataset are compared to the fronts generated by a single-objective Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm with respect to several front evaluation metrics such as generational distance, spacing and spread. The comparison results suggest that the MOSA algorithm is able to search the objective space more effectively than the SA method. For each of these methods, some front solutions are selected for longer training in order to see their actual performance on the original test set. Again, the results state that the MOSA performs better than the SA under multi-objective setting. The performance of the MOSA configurations are also compared to other search generated and human designed state-of-the-art architectures. It is shown that the network configurations generated by the MOSA are not dominated by those architectures, and the proposed method can be of great use when the computational complexity is as important as the test accuracy

Hyper-Parameter Selection in Convolutional Neural Networks Using Microcanonical Optimization Algorithm

The success of Convolutional Neural Networks is highly dependent on the selected architecture and the hyper-parameters. The need for the automatic design of the networks is especially important for complex architectures where the parameter space is so large that trying all possible combinations is computationally infeasible. In this study, Microcanonical Optimization algorithm which is a variant of Simulated Annealing method is used for hyper-parameter optimization and architecture selection for Convolutional Neural Networks. To the best of our knowledge, our study provides a rst attempt at applying Microcanonical Optimization for this task. The networks generated by the proposed method is compared to the networks generated by Simulated Annealing method in terms of both accuracy and size using six widely-used image recognition datasets. Moreover, a performance comparison using Tree Parzen Estimator which is a Bayesion optimization-based approach is also presented. It is shown that the proposed method is able to achieve competitive classi cation results with the state-of-the-art architectures. When the size of the networks is also taken into account, one can see that the networks generated by Microcanonical Optimization method contain far less parameters than the state-of-the-art architectures. Therefore, the proposed method can be preferred for automatically tuning the networks especially in situations where fast training is as important as the accuracy

A bi-criteria simulated annealing algorithm for the robust university course timetabling problem

A bi-criteria version of the curriculum-based university timetabling problem of ITC-2007 is solved using a multi-objective simulated annealing (MOSA) algorithm that identifies an approximation to the optimal Pareto front. The two criteria are the penalty function as defined in ITC-2007 and a robustness function. The robustness function assumes one disruption occurs in the form of a period of an event (lecture) becoming infeasible for that event. The parameters of the MOSA algorithm are set using the Iterated FRace algorithm and then its performance is tested against a hybrid MOGA algorithm developed by the authors. The results show that MOSA provides better approximation fronts than the hybrid MOGA

The effects of sowing time and depth on germination and seedling percentage of the Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.)

The aim of this study is to determine the appropriate sowing time and depth in spring for Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich) in Turkey. The effects of sowing time and depth were determined with regard tothe germination rate of seedlings’ quality. The seeds were collected from Kapidag-Isparta, in Turkey, in 2003 and 2004. The seeds were sown at 6 different dates and 5 different depths under natural conditions without any pre-treatment in 2004 and 2005. The statistical approach was randomized block design with 3 replications and 100 seeds were sown for each replication. The 1000 seed weights and germination percentages of the seeds were determined under laboratory conditions before sowing inthe nursery. According to analysis of variance and Duncan’s test, in locations with appropriate soil conditions, seeds should be sown at 5 mm depth as soon as possible until the second half of February. The germination of 65% can be obtained from seeds sown under these conditions. High quality, bare root and one-year-old seedlings can be grown from approximately 55% of the seeds. Moreover, spring sowing should not take place after March 15th and at depths of more than 20 mm

Novel Surrogate Measures Based on a Similarity Network for Neural Architecture Search

We propose two novel surrogate measures to predict the validation accuracy of the classification produced by a given neural architecture, thus eliminating the need to train it, in order to speed up neural architecture search (NAS). The surrogate measures are based on a solution similarity network, where distance between solutions is measured using the binary encoding of some graph sub-components of the neural architectures. These surrogate measures are implemented within local search and differential evolution algorithms and tested on NAS-Bench-101 and NAS-Bench-301 datasets. The results show that the performance of the similarity-network-based predictors, as measured by correlation between predicted and true accuracy values, are comparable to the state-of-the-art predictors in the literature, however they are significantly faster in achieving these high correlation values for NAS-Bench-101. Furthermore, in some cases, the use of these predictors significantly improves the search performance of the equivalent algorithm (differential evolution or local search) that does not use the predictor

The effects of sowing time and depth on germination and seedling percentage of the Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.)

The aim of this study is to determine the appropriate sowing time and depth in spring for Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich) in Turkey. The effects of sowing time and depth were determined with regard to the germination rate of seedlings' quality. The seeds were collected from Kapidag-Isparta, in Turkey, in 2003 and 2004. The seeds were sown at 6 different dates and 5 different depths under natural conditions without any pre-treatment in 2004 and 2005. The statistical approach was randomized block design with 3 replications and 100 seeds were sown for each replication. The 1000 seed weights and germination percentages of the seeds were determined under laboratory conditions before sowing in the nursery. According to analysis of variance and Duncan's test, in locations with appropriate soil conditions, seeds should be sown at 5 mm depth as soon as possible until the second half of February. The germination of 65% can be obtained from seeds sown under these conditions. High quality, bare root and one-year-old seedlings can be grown from approximately 55% of the seeds. Moreover, spring sowing should not take place after March 15(th) and at depths of more than 20 mm

The Medieval Christian Philosophy, Doctrine of Love and Literature: The Romance of the Rose

The concept of love, examined in various works from the classical ages onwards, gained an ethical meaning in the Middle Ages. Accordingly, love is not a sexual urge, but a virtue acquired by coping with some difficulties. The concept best reflecting the issue of love is “courtly love”. The term suggests the lovers to show earnestness and courtesy while it also offers them to avoid avarice and pride. It emphasises as well that lovers should suffer insomnia for their beloved person or object. Thus, one of the best examples for the medieval view of love is The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris. Andreas Capellanus’ doctrines in The Art of Court Love shape the work’s content, while Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy influences its form. So, this study will examine the courtly love in the joint poem in relation to the effects of continental literature

Relation Between Relative Efficiencies and Brand Values of Global Turkish Banks Trading on Istanbul Stock Exchange

The global competition in banking sector, global capital flows, and proliferation of financial markets have been forcing banks to utilize their resources in an efficient way and use various methods to determine and increase their performances against the competitors. Within this context, the relative efficiency measurement and statistical programming based DEA and the efficiency scores that come out of this analysis have been ranked, resulting in an "efficiency ranking of the banks". Following this, the efficiency ranking of these banks has been compared with brand value ranking of Brand Finance and their similarity/correspondence has been assessed