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Abstract: Value and ambiguity are two parameters which were introduced to represent fuzzy numbers. In this paper, we find the nearest trapezoidal approximation and the nearest symmetric trapezoidal approximation to a given fuzzy number, with respect to the average Euclidean distance, preserving the value and ambiguity. To avoid the laborious calculus associated with the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker theorem, the working tool in some recent papers, a less sophisticated method is proposed. Algorithms for computing the approximations, many examples, proofs of continuity and two applications to ranking of fuzzy numbers and estimations of the defect of additivity for approximations are given. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A soft computing approach based on artificial neural network (ANN) and optimization is presented for the numerical solution of the unsteady one-dimensional advection–dispersion equation (ADE) arising in contaminant transport through porous media. A length factor ANN method, based on automatic satisfaction of arbitrary boundary conditions (BCs) was chosen for the numerical solution of ADE. The strength of ANN is exploited to construct a trial approximate solution (TAS) for ADE in a way that it satisfies the initial or BCs exactly. An unsupervised error is constructed in approximating the solution of ADE which is minimized by training ANN using gradient descent algorithm (GDA). Two challenging test problems of ADE are considered in this paper, in which, the first problem has steep boundary layers near x = 1 and many numerical methods create non-physical oscillation near steep boundaries. Also for the second problem many numerical schemes suffer from computational noise and instability issues. The proposed method is advantageous as it does not require temporal discretization for the solution of the ADEs as well as it does not suffer from numerical instability. The reliability and effectiveness of the presented algorithm is investigated by sufficient large number of independent runs and comparison of results with other existing numerical methods. The results show that the present method removes the difficulties arising in the solution of the ADEs and provides solution with good accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To realize the basic units of fractional order controllers, it is necessary to approximate irrational differintegrators. Many methods deal with analog approximation. But not many results exist for discrete approximation. In this case, approximations are most times poor in some frequency range, or the quality of the approximation is good in a narrow frequency interval. This paper proposes an indirect discretization method that takes advantage from the particle swarm optimization (PSO) to approximate fractional order operators. The method employs an heuristic procedure to optimize the interlacing of zero–pole pairs on the real axis. Then, a discretization rule is applied to obtain the discrete approximation. Simulation results show that the frequency response obtained by PSO improves the approximation offered by other efficient and recent indirect discretization techniques. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper proposes a new ranking method for fuzzy numbers, which uses a defuzzification of fuzzy numbers and a weighting function. Following Saeidifar and Pasha (2008), first, we define a weighted distance measure on fuzzy numbers, and then, by minimizing this distance, the weighted interval and point approximations of fuzzy numbers are obtained. These indices are applied to rank the fuzzy numbers. This method is new and interesting for ranking fuzzy numbers, and it can be applied for solving and optimizing engineering and economics problems in a fuzzy environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we present a new symmetric rank-one (SR1) method for the solution of unconstrained optimization problems. The proposed method involves an algorithm in which the usual SR1 Hessian is updated a number of times in a way to be specified in some iterations, to improve the performance of the Hessian approximation. In particular, we discuss how to consider a criterion for indicating at each iteration whether it is necessary to employ extra updates. However it is well known that there are some theoretical difficulties when applying the SR1 update. Even for a current positive definite Hessian approximation, it is possible that the SR1 update may not be defined or the SR1 update may not preserve positive definiteness at some iterations. We then employ a restarting procedure that guarantees that updated matrices will be well-defined while preserving positive definiteness of updates. Numerical results support these theoretical considerations. They show that the implementation of the SR1 method using extra updating techniques improves the performance of the SR1 method substantially for a number of test problems from the literature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we propose an improved multi-step diagonal updating method for large scale unconstrained optimization. Our approach is based on constructing a new gradient-type method by means of interpolating curves. We measure the distances required to parameterize the interpolating polynomials via a norm defined by a positive-definite matrix. By developing on implicit updating approach we can obtain an improved version of Hessian approximation in diagonal matrix form, while avoiding the computational expenses of actually calculating the improved version of the approximation matrix. The effectiveness of our proposed method is evaluated by means of computational comparison with the BB method and its variants. We show that our method is globally convergent and only requires memory allocations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Many real problems can be modeled to the problems with a hierarchical structure, and bilevel programming is a useful tool to solve the hierarchical optimization problems. So the bilevel programming is widely applied, and numerous methods have been proposed to solve this programming. In this paper, we propose an approximate programming algorithm to solve bilevel nonlinear programming problem. Finally, the example illustrates the feasibility of the proposed algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recently, an increasing attention was paid on different procedures for an unconstrained optimization problem when the information of the first derivatives is unavailable or unreliable. In this paper, we consider a heuristic iterated-subspace minimization method with pattern search for solving such unconstrained optimization problems. The proposed method is designed to reduce the total number of function evaluations for the implementation of high-dimensional problems. Meanwhile, it keeps the advantages of general pattern search algorithm, i.e., the information of the derivatives is not needed. At each major iteration of such a method, a low-dimensional manifold, the iterated subspace, is constructed. And an approximate minimizer of the objective function in this manifold is then determined by a pattern search method. Numerical results on some classic test examples are given to show the efficiency of the proposed method in comparison with a conventional pattern search method and a derivative-free method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, a novel learning strategy for radial basis function networks (RBFN) is proposed. By adjusting the parameters of the hidden layer, including the RBF centers and widths, the weights of the output layer are adapted by local optimization methods. A new local optimization algorithm based on a combination of the gradient and Newton methods is introduced. The efficiency of some local optimization methods to update the weights of RBFN is studied in solving systems of nonlinear integral equations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we consider a conic trust-region method for unconstrained optimization problems and analyze its convergence properties. We propose a convenient curvilinear search method to approximately solve the arising conic trust-region subproblem. Note that this approximate method preserves the strong convergence properties of the exact solution methods and is easy to implement. Both the linear and superlinear convergence of the method are established under commonly used conditions. Numerical experiments are conducted to show the efficiency of the new method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, a numerical research on the sensitivity of nonmonotone trust region algorithms to their parameters is presented. We compare the numerical efficiency of two classes of nonmonotone trust region (NTR) algorithms in the context of unconstrained optimization. We examine the sensitivity of the algorithms to the parameters related to the nonmonotone technique and the initial trust region radius. We show that the numerical efficiency of nonmonotone trust region algorithms can be improved by choosing appropriate parameters. Based on extensive numerical tests, some efficient ranges of these parameters for nonmonotone trust region algorithms are recommended. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Let and be nontrivial unitary involutions, i.e., and . We say that is a generalized reflexive matrix if . The set of all generalized reflexive matrices is denoted by . In this paper, a sufficient and necessary condition for the matrix equation , where and , to have a solution is established, and if it exists, a representation of the solution set is given. An optimal approximation between a given matrix and the affine subspace is discussed, an explicit formula for the unique optimal approximation solution is presented, and a numerical example is provided. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The computation of the greatest common divisor (GCD) of many polynomials is a nongeneric problem. Techniques defining “approximate GCD” solutions have been defined, but the proper definition of the “approximate” GCD, and the way we can measure the strength of the approximation has remained open. This paper uses recent results on the representation of the GCD of many polynomials, in terms of factorisation of generalised resultants, to define the notion of “approximate GCD” and define the strength of any given approximation by solving an optimisation problem. The newly established framework is used to evaluate the performance of alternative procedures which have been used for defining approximate GCDs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]