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As one of the most important unit in the papermaking industry, the high consistency (HC) refining system is confronted with challenges such as improving pulp quality, energy saving, and emissions reduction in its operation processes. In this correspondence, an optimal operation of HC refining system is presented using nonlinear multiobjective model predictive control strategies that aim at set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and specific energy (SE) consumption objective, respectively. First, a set of input and output data at different times are employed to construct the subprocess model of the state process model for the HC refining system, and then the Wiener-type model can be obtained through combining the mechanism model of Canadian Standard Freeness and the state process model that determines their structures based on Akaike information criterion. Second, the multiobjective optimization strategy that optimizes both the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality and SE consumption is proposed simultaneously, which uses NSGA-II approach to obtain the Pareto optimal set. Furthermore, targeting at the set-point tracking objective of pulp quality, economic objective, and SE consumption objective, the sequential quadratic programming method is utilized to produce the optimal predictive controllers. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed methods can make the HC refining system provide a better performance of set-point tracking of pulp quality when these predictive controllers are employed. In addition, while the optimal predictive controllers orienting with comprehensive economic objective and SE consumption objective, it has been shown that they have significantly reduced the energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work presented in this paper concerns a switching-based control formulation for multi-intersection and multiphase traffic light systems. A macroscopic traffic flow modeling approach is first presented, which is instrumental to the development of a model-based and switching-based optimization method for traffic signal operation, in the framework of adaptive dynamic programming (ADP). The main advantage of the switching-based formulation is its capability to determine both “when”’ to switch and “which” mode to switch on without the need to use the cycle-based average flow approximation typical of state-of-the-art formulations. In addition, the framework can handle different cycle times across intersections without the need for synchronization constraints and, moreover, minimum dwell-time constraints can be directly enforced to comply with minimum green/red times in each phase. The simulation experiments on a multi-intersection and multiphase traffic light systems are presented to show the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In group decision making, it is inevitable that the individual decision maker’s subjectivity is involved, which causes difficulty in reaching a group decision. One of the difficulties is to aggregate a small set of expert opinions with the individual subjectivity or uncertainty modeled with probability theory. This difficult problem is called probability distribution function aggregation (DFA). This paper presents a simple and efficient approach to the DFA problem. The main idea of the proposed approach is that the DFA problem is modeled as a nonlinear function of a set of probability distribution functions, and then a linear feedback iteration scheme is proposed to solve the nonlinear function, leading to a group judgment or decision. Illustration of this new approach is given by a well-known DFA example which was solved with the Delphi method. The DFA problem is a part of the group decision problem. Therefore, the proposed algorithm is also useful to the decision making problem in general. Another contribution of the this paper is the proposed notation of systematically representing the imprecise group decision problem with the classification of imprecise information into three classes, namely incomplete information, vague information, and uncertain information. The particular DFA problem dealt with in this paper is then characterized with this general notation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Role assignment is an important and complex task in collaboration and management. Group role assignment (GRA) pursues the optimal team performance by assigning pertinent roles to agents in a team from the team’s viewpoint. There are many factors that should be considered when conducting role assignment. Budgets are such a factor. This paper presents a challenging role assignment problem in collaboration, called GRA with budget constraints (GRABC). This paper contributes a thorough investigation of the GRABC problem including: 1) the first formalization of the proposed problem; 2) a set of practical solutions to different forms of this problem by using the IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization package (CPLEX); 3) a set of necessary conditions for these problems to possess feasible solutions to improve the CPLEX solutions; and 4) a synthesized process to deal with GRABC problems. Contribution 2) actually clarifies a list of requirements in solving the GRABC problem. Simulations, experiments and a case study are used to verify the practicability and efficiency of the proposed solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collective intelligent behaviors of insects or animal groups in nature have maintained the survival of the species for thousands of years. In this paper, a novel swarm intelligence algorithm called the social group entropy optimization (SGEO) algorithm is proposed for solving optimization tasks. The proposed algorithm is based on the social group model, the status optimization model, and the entropy model, which are the main contributions of this paper. First, the social group model and the feedback mechanism between Leaders and Followers are developed to reduce the probability of local optimum. Second, the status optimization model is described to reveal the changing rule about the population behavior states, to support the conversion between different social behaviors during evolution, to promote the algorithm to optimize quickly, and to avoid local optimization. Third, the entropy model is introduced to analyze the entropy of social groups, the change rule of difference entropy, and to set the information entropy as behavior’s criterion of state optimization. In addition, the mathematical model of the SGEO is deduced from the group theory, matter dynamics, and the information entropy theory. The convergence and parallelism of it have been analyzed and verified theoretically. Moreover, to test the effectiveness of the SGEO, it is used to solve benchmark functions’ problems that are commonly considered within the literature of evolutionary algorithms. Experimental results are compared with those of three other state-of-the-art algorithms. The superior performance of the SGEO validates its effectiveness and efficiency for the optimization problems, especially for the high-dimension problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The adaptive sliding mode control (SMC) problem is addressed for singular semi-Markovian jump systems (S-MJSs) against actuator attacks, in which the transition rates rely on the random sojourn time and are not constant, and the system states are unavailable. Moreover, the vulnerability of control signals transmitted via communication network means that the actuators may receive the attacked control signals. For the sake of reducing the effect of actuator attacks, the neural network technique is used to approximate the false information injected by adversaries. Meanwhile, a sliding mode observer is introduced to estimate the unmeasured states. An adaptive SMC law is proposed to guarantee that the estimation states and errors can reach to the sliding surfaces, and the stochastic admissibility of the singular S-MJSs can be ensured. In the end, an example is applied to illustrate the method in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Role assignment is a critical element in the role-based collaboration process. There are many different requirements to be considered when undertaking this task. This correspondence paper formalizes the group multirole assignment (GMRA) problem; proves the necessary and sufficient condition for the problem to have a feasible solution, provides an improved IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization package solution, and verifies the proposed solution with experiments. The contributions of this paper include: 1) the formalization of an important engineering problem, i.e., the GMRA problem; 2) a theoretical proof of the necessary and sufficient condition for GMRA to have a feasible solution; and 3) an improved ILOG solution to such a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning a prototype from a set of given objects is a core problem in machine learning and pattern recognition. A commonly used approach for consensus learning is to formulate it as an optimization problem in terms of generalized median computation. Recently, a prototype-embedding approach has been proposed to transform the objects into a vector space, compute the geometric median, and then inversely transform back into the original space. This vector space embedding approach has been successfully applied in several domains, where the generalized median problem has inherent high-computational complexity (typically $\mathcal {NP}$ -hard) and thus approximate solutions are required. Generally, it can be expected that the embedding should be done in a distance-preserving manner. However, the previous work based on the prototype-embedding approach did not take this embedding aspect into account. In this paper, we discuss the drawbacks of the current prototype-embedding approach and present an extensive empirical study that provides strong evidence of significantly improved quality of generalized median computation using distance-preserving embedding (DPE) methods. We also give concrete suggestions about suitable DPE methods. Moreover, we show that this framework can be used to effectively compute other consensus objects like the closest string. Finally, a MATLAB toolbox resulting from this paper is made publically available in order to encourage other researchers to explore the embedding-based consensus computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid flow shop scheduling problems have gained an increasing attention in recent years because of its wide applications in real-world production systems. Most of the prior studies assume that the processing time of jobs is deterministic and constant. In practice, jobs’ processing time is usually difficult to be exactly known in advance and can be influenced by many factors, e.g., machines’ abrasion and jobs’ feature, thereby leading to their uncertain and variable processing time. In this paper, a dual-objective stochastic hybrid flow shop deteriorating scheduling problem is presented with the goal to minimize makespan and total tardiness. In the formulated problem, the normal processing time of jobs follows a known stochastic distribution, and their actual processing time is a linear function of their start time. In order to solve it effectively, this paper develops a hybrid multiobjective optimization algorithm that maintains two populations executing the global search in the whole solution space and the local search in promising regions, respectively. An information sharing mechanism and resource allocating method are designed to enhance its exploration and exploitation ability. The simulation experiments are carried out on a set of instances, and several classical algorithms are chosen as its peers for comparison. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a great advantage in dealing with the investigated problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When solving constrained optimization problems (COPs) by evolutionary algorithms, the search algorithm plays a crucial role. In general, we expect that the search algorithm has the capability to balance not only diversity and convergence but also constraints and objective function during the evolution. For this purpose, this paper proposes a composite differential evolution (DE) for constrained optimization, which includes three different trial vector generation strategies with distinct advantages. In order to strike a balance between diversity and convergence, one of these three trial vector generation strategies is able to increase diversity, and the other two exhibit the property of convergence. In addition, to accomplish the tradeoff between constraints and objective function, one of the two trial vector generation strategies for convergence is guided by the individual with the least degree of constraint violation in the population, and the other is guided by the individual with the best objective function value in the population. After producing offspring by the proposed composite DE, the feasibility rule and the $\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }$ constrained method are combined elaborately for selection in this paper. Moreover, a restart scheme is proposed to help the population jump out of a local optimum in the infeasible region for some extremely complicated COPs. By assembling the above techniques together, a constrained composite DE is proposed. The experiments on two sets of benchmark test functions with various features, i.e., 24 test functions from IEEE CEC2006 and 18 test functions with 10 dimensions and 30 dimensions from IEEE CEC2010, have demonstrated that the proposed method shows better or at least competitive performance against other state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models a warm standby system where a single element is online performing a specified mission task (e.g., a computing task) and subject to corrective replacement (CR) by an available standby element upon its failure. During the mission, preventive replacements (PRs) are also performed to renew the aged or worn online operating element before its actual failure according to a predetermined policy. In addition, to facilitate an effective restoration of system function in case of CR or PR happening, backups are also performed periodically so that the mission task can be resumed from the last successful backup point instead of from scratch. The mission succeeds if the specified mission task is accomplished; in other words, the mission fails when no operating elements remain prior to the mission task completion. In this paper, we make new contributions by first proposing an event transition-based numerical method to evaluate mission performance indices of the considered standby system subject to periodic backups, CR and PR. Mission success probability (MSP), expected mission completion time, expected mission operation cost (EMC), and expected uncompleted work fraction are evaluated. Based on the suggested evaluation algorithm, we make another contribution by formulating and solving optimization problems that help to determine the optimal backup-PR policy or the optimal combination of element activation sequencing and backup-PR policy to maximize MSP or minimize EMC. Influence of element performance and reliability parameters, data backup and retrieval complexity parameters on the optimal operation policy is investigated. Findings from this paper can guide the optimal decision making on policies related to element sequencing, backups as well as preventive maintenance planning, contributing toward reliable and cost-effective design and operation of standby computing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficacy of the multimodel framework (MMF) in modeling and identification of complex, nonlinear, and uncertain systems has been widely recognized in the literature owing to its simplicity, transparency, and mathematical tractability, allowing the use of well-known modeling analysis and control design techniques. The approach proved to be effective in addressing some of the shortcomings of other modeling techniques such as those based on a single nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs model or neural networks. A great number of researchers have contributed to this active field. Due to the significant amount of contributions and the lack of a recent survey, the review of recent developments in this field is vital. In this two-part paper, we attempt to provide a comprehensive coverage of the multimodel approach for modeling and identification of complex systems. This paper contains a classification of different methods, the challenges encountered, as well as recent applications of MMF in various fields. In this part 2, the review of multimodel internal structures and parameter estimation as well as validity computation methods is presented. In addition, a multimodel application and future direction are covered. In this literature survey, our main focus is on the MMF where the final system’s representation and behavior is generated through the interpolation of several possible local models. This is of prime importance to control designers. All through this paper, different active research areas and open problems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a united-based imperialist competitive algorithm (UICA) for compensatory neural fuzzy systems. The original imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) comprises numerous empires in the population, and each empire comprises one imperialist and some colonies. Each country represents a feasible solution in the empire, and the more favorable solutions become imperialists, taking over less favorable solutions (i.e., colonies). In the ICA, each colony moves toward its relevant imperialist according to an assimilation policy. This paper proposes a UICA that focuses on this assimilation policy to explore the characteristics of the colonies. The assimilation policy consists of three major parts in this paper. In the first part, a colony searches for the best previous position of the colony. In the second part, the colony faces the best-so-far imperialist. In the third part, the colony moves toward the corresponding imperialist of the colony. The proposed UICA was applied to nonlinear system problems, and the experimental results indicated that the proposed UICA is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is an important topic to organize a team efficiently and keep it in a good state. In most cases, administrators try to avoid critical members. With this requirement, administrators prefer that their team members are able to be good at many things and expert in one (GMEO). However, that too many people are “good at many things” is definitely a waste. Role-based collaboration and its environments—classes, agents, roles, groups, and objects (E-CARGO) model are a good means to provide modeling and solutions to such a challenging problem. This paper formalizes the problem of GMEO into GMEO-1 (the fundamental form of GMEO) with the support of E-CARGO, clarifies two different forms of GMEO-1 and provides two highly practical solutions. The proposed solutions are verified by comparing with initial solutions using a linear programming solver, i.e., the IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Platform. The contributions of this paper are a thorough investigation of GMEO-1 that has no exact solutions even for a small group (e.g., ten people) and is normally managed by highly qualified administrators. The proposed solutions provide digital results with algorithms that form a solid foundation for decision making in dealing with similar issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an on-going need for faster, more accurate, and easier to implement threat identification systems for concealed electronics, to thwart terrorism and espionage attempts. Common electronics are used in the design of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), targeting military, and civilian populations, while concealed recording devices steal proprietary/confidential data, compromising both government and industrial resources. This paper discusses a novel, nonintrusive, repeatable, reliable, expandable, and simple-to-implement detection and identification (D&I) system for identifying threats by using unintended radiated emissions (URE). This paper differs from current URE proposals, by avoiding energy radiation. The proposed process also addresses big data problems involved in capturing and building databases of URE characteristics. Issue interpretation is utilized with URE data to distinguish between threat/nonthreat devices using multiple criteria decision analysis and other decision-making techniques to determine model and mode of hidden devices. System optimization, verified by testing, is used to improve the speed and accuracy of the identification algorithm. The system is developed with data from 130 devices and validated with 33 separate devices, which are representative of IED and espionage threats. Due to slow progress in the URE D&I field, the properties and potential of a more effective D&I system, compared to current methods, will be of interest to the explosive ordnance disposal, security services, electronic systems manufacturing, automated inventory, mobile application development communities, and potentially others as well. For a field that is not well documented, this paper provides a clear, concise, and detailed model for future research and applications of URE D&I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cash-related costs constitute a large portion of management cost of an automated teller machine (ATM) network. Cash should be delivered to or picked-up from ATM devices in certain intervals in order to both meet customer satisfaction and to be able to generate additional revenue from excess cash through daily interest rates. Unlike classical ATMs, new-generation ATMs, also called recycle ATMs, have a single cassette for cash withdrawal and deposit; this property imposes new restrictions on ATM cash management. Moreover, recycle ATMs are costly, and hence their deployment should be planned carefully. In this paper, our aim is to optimize the ATM networks in terms of cash related costs. We formulate an optimization problem as an integer linear program, which jointly decides on when to visit an ATM, how much money to deliver to which ATM and which road should be followed for the distribution of cash to the ATMs. We also decide on which ATMs in the network should be replaced by a recycle ATM. We then propose a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm and compare it with the optimization formulation in terms of cash cost and the recycle ATM decision. We demonstrate through performance evaluation that our heuristic algorithm is suitable for practical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide a novel framework to assess the vulnerability/robustness of a network with respect to pair-wise nodes’ connectivity. In particular, we consider attackers that aim, at the same time, at dealing the maximum possible damage to the network in terms of the residual connectivity after the attack and at keeping the cost of the attack (e.g., the number of attacked nodes) at a minimum. Differently from the previous literature, we consider the attacker perspective using a multiobjective formulation and, rather than making hypotheses on the mindset of the attacker in terms of a particular tradeoff between the objectives, we consider the entire Pareto front of nondominated solutions. Based on that, we define novel global and local robustness/vulnerability indicators and we show that such indices can be the base for the implementation of effective protection strategies. Specifically, we propose two different problem formulations and we assess their performances. We conclude this paper by analyzing, as case studies, the IEEE118 power network and the U.S. Airline Network as it was in 1997, comparing the proposed approach against centrality measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration is complex. To solve a problem occurring in collaboration, using computers, we must first define and specify the problem. This paper presents a challenging problem in collaboration, called group role assignment with cooperation and conflict factors (GRACCFs). This problem’s solution aims at creating a high-performance group by role assignment with consideration of cooperation and conflicts between agents. The contribution of this paper is the formalization of the proposed problem, a confirmation of the complexity of the problem, a practical solution that uses the IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization package (ILOG), a verification of the benefits of solving the GRACCF problem by simulations and a practical way of collecting the required factors to support decision makers in solving such a problem within a real-world scenario. Experiments are used to verify the efficiency of the proposed ILOG solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data backups play an important role in effective recovery of system operations, especially, those in computing and Information Technology-related applications. By saving copies of information associated with the completed part of a mission task, a failed system, upon being repaired, can resume its operation from the latest backup point instead of having to repeat the entire work from scratch. This paper considers a repairable, real-time system performing a sequence of nonperiodic full backup (FB) and incremental backup (IB) procedures during its mission. The mission succeeds if a specified amount of work can be accomplished by the system within a deadline. New contributions of this paper are twofold. First, a numerical recursive method is proposed to model effects of the nonperiodic, mixed backup strategy in assessing mission success probability, and expected completion time of the considered system. The method is applicable to any distribution of FBs and IBs and has no limitation on system time-to-failure distributions. Second, the optimal backup policy problem is formulated and solved, which finds the distribution of FBs and IBs maximizing the mission success probability. Examples are provided to illustrate the proposed methodology as well as influence of different parameters on the optimal solution. Advantages of adopting nonperiodic backups over periodic ones are also illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mobile applications are being increasingly deployed on a massive scale in various mobile sensor grid database systems. With limited resources from the mobile devices, how to process the huge number of queries from mobile users with distributed sensor grid databases becomes a critical problem for such mobile systems. While the fundamental semantic cache technique has been investigated for query optimization in sensor grid database systems, the problem is still difficult due to the fact that more realistic multidimensional constraints have not been considered in existing methods. To solve the problem, a new semantic cache scheme is presented in this paper for location-dependent data queries in distributed sensor grid database systems. It considers multidimensional constraints or factors in a unified cost model architecture, determines the parameters of the cost model in the scheme by using the concept of Nash equilibrium from game theory, and makes semantic cache decisions from the established cost model. The scenarios of three factors of semantic, time, and locations are investigated as special cases, which improve existing methods. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the semantic cache scheme presented in this paper for distributed sensor grid database systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the optimization of the finite-time consensus of a multiagent system is studied when the leader is disturbed by white noise. Different from the consensus problem itself, this paper is devoted to optimizing the performance of the consensus and the constructive method and martingale method are used to guarantee the effectiveness of the optimization. Another contribution is that the problem of the optimal control with the piecewise constant controller gains under a stochastic environment is solved, and the reformed dynamic principle and the reformed Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) partial differential equations (PDEs) are proposed by using the splitting method and Feynman–Kac formula. Furthermore, since the multiagent system often runs on a high-dimensional space, a heuristic method is proposed based on the derivation of the reformed HJB PDEs and the scalar of the computational complexity of the PDEs is equivalent to that of a system of ordinary differential equations with the same dimensions when the multiagent system can be described as a piecewise linear system. Finally, the heuristic method is compared with usual filtering methods for solving engineering problems by a numerical example and it is found that the heuristic method achieves higher precision in finite time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection is an optional preprocessing procedure and is frequently used to improve the classification accuracy of a machine learning algorithm by removing irrelevant and/or redundant features. However, in many real-world applications, the test cost is also required for making optimal decisions, in addition to the classification accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, thus far, few studies have been conducted on test-cost-sensitive feature selection (TCSFS). In TCSFS, the objectives are twofold: 1) to improve the classification accuracy and 2) to decrease the test cost. Therefore, in fact, it constitutes a multiobjective optimization problem. In this paper, we transformed this multiobjective optimization problem into a single-objective optimization problem by utilizing a new evaluation function and in this paper, we propose a new general wrapper framework for TCSFS. Specifically, in our proposed framework, we add a new term to the evaluation function of a wrapper feature selection method so that the test cost of measuring features is taken into account. We experimentally tested our proposed framework, using 36 classification problems from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) repository, and compared it to some other state-of-the-art feature selection frameworks. The experimental results showed that our framework allows users to select an optimal feature subset with the minimal test cost, while simultaneously maintaining a high classification accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid changes in production environments have motivated researchers and industrial manufacturers to coordinate the production and distribution in supply chain management. This paper aims to address the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with batch delivery to multiple customers. In this problem, products are first manufactured in a permutation flow shop, and subsequently delivered to multiple customers in batches. To optimize the tradeoff between customer service and distribution cost, the objective of this paper is to minimize the total cost of tardiness and batch delivery. To deal with such optimization problem, two simple heuristics and a novel meta-heuristic (GA-TVNS) are developed to determine integrated production and distribution schedules. GA-TVNS hybridizes genetic algorithm and variable neighborhood search (VNS) to provide better exploration and exploitation in the search space. Moreover, to improve the local search of VNS, two new learning-based neighborhood structures are designed based on the classical school learning process of teaching–learning-based optimization. Computation experiments on both small-sized and large-sized test problems indicate that GA-TVNS performs the best among all the compared scheduling algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population dynamics have been widely used in the design of learning and control systems for networked engineering applications, where the information dependency among elements of the network has become a relevant issue. Classic population dynamics (e.g., replicator, logit choice, Smith, and projection) require full information to evolve to the solution (Nash equilibrium). The main reason is that classic population dynamics are deduced by assuming well-mixed populations, which limits the applications where this theory can be implemented. In this paper, we extend the concept of population dynamics for nonwell-mixed populations in order to deal with distributed information structures that are characterized by noncomplete graphs. Although the distributed population dynamics proposed in this paper use partial information, they preserve similar characteristics and properties of their classic counterpart. Specifically, we prove mass conservation and convergence to Nash equilibrium. To illustrate the performance of the proposed dynamics, we show some applications in the solution of optimization problems, classic games, and the design of distributed controllers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The finite-time state estimation issue is addressed in this paper for discrete time-delayed neural networks (NNs). More than one communication channel is utilized to improve the communication performance. The transmission delays of each channel are modeled by a family of stochastic variables which are independent and identically distributed. The main purpose of this paper is to construct an appropriate state estimation scheme under which the corresponding state estimation error dynamics is finite-time bounded in the mean square. By employing the stochastic analysis approach and introducing a special Lyapunov-like functional, we have developed certain sufficient conditions to achieve the prescribed estimation performance. Furthermore, the exact expressions of the achieved estimator parameters are given by solving a special minimization problem subject to certain inequality constraints. Finally, we propose an illustrative simulation to examine the correctness, as well as the effectiveness, of our proposed state estimation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple solutions are often needed because of different kinds of uncertain failures in a plan execution process and scenarios for which precise mathematical models and constraints are difficult to obtain. This paper proposes an optimization strategy for multirobot task allocation (MRTA) problems and makes efforts on offering multiple solutions with same or similar quality for switching and selection. Since the mentioned problem can be regarded as a multimodal optimization one, this paper presents a niching immune-based optimization algorithm based on Softmax regression (sNIOA) to handle it. A prejudgment of population is done before entering an evaluation process to reduce the evaluation time and to avoid unnecessary computation. Furthermore, a guiding mutation (GM) operator inspired by the base pair in theory of gene mutation is introduced into sNIOA to strengthen its search ability. When a certain gene mutates, the others in the same gene group are more likely to mutate with a higher probability. Experimental results show the improvement of sNIOA on the aspect of accelerating computation speed with comparison to other heuristic algorithms. They also show the effectiveness of the proposed GM operator by comparing sNIOA with and without it. Two MRTA application cases are tested finally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonlinear equations system (NES) arises commonly in science and engineering. Repulsion techniques are considered to be the effective methods to locate different roots of NES. In general, the repulsive radius needs to be given by the user before the run. However, its optimal parameter setting is difficult and problem-dependent. To alleviate this drawback, in this paper, we first propose a dynamic repulsion technique, and then a general framework based on the dynamic repulsion technique and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) is presented to effectively solve NES. The major advantages of our framework are: 1) the repulsive radius is controlled dynamically during the evolutionary process; 2) multiple roots of NES can be simultaneously located in a single run; 3) the diversity of the population is preserved due to the population reinitialization; and 4) different repulsion techniques and different EAs can be readily integrated into this framework. To extensively evaluate the performance of our framework, we choose 42 problems with diverse features as the test suite. In addition, some representative differential evolution and particle swarm optimization variants are incorporated into the framework. Our method is also compared with other state-of-the-art methods. Experimental results indicate that the dynamic repulsion technique can improve the performance of the original repulsion technique with static repulsive radius. Moreover, the proposed method is able to yield better results compared with other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an improved linear quadratic tracking control strategy using a new receding horizon expanded state space (ESS) model is proposed. Unlike traditional state space model, the new ESS model first facilitates the combination of the system state variables and tracking errors, then a subsequent new receding horizon improved linear quadratic tracking control (RHLQTC) is designed with more degrees of freedoms for the adjustment of control parameters, which yields improved control performance compared with traditional RHLQTC. Finally, simulations on a typical reverse process are done in comparison with traditional RHLQTC in terms of both servo and regulatory performance, where results show that the proposed controller provides improved performance under both situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new intelligent data-driven adaptive method (IDAM) of performing automatic online searches in real time. An online implementation of the proposed IDAM achieved rapid real-time optimization of system integration scaling factors for an automatic touch panel lamination machine. The proposed IDAM combines three-level orthogonal arrays (OAs), signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), the best combined strategy, and a stepwise ratio. Three-level OA experiments with factor values are used to perform positional experiments, and SNRs are calculated for each experimental value. After the best combination of factor values (in terms of factor effect) is determined, new three-level factor values are derived by applying a stepwise ratio and used in further three-level OA experiments. These steps are repeated until the stopping criterion is met. Compared to conventional methods, the use of the IDAM in practical industrial applications, i.e., online real-time precision positioning for automatic touch panel lamination machines, reduces the number of experiments needed to obtain the system integration scaling factors that minimize the iteration count. For example, the IDAM required less than 40 online real-time experiments with a specific stepwise ratio for system integration scaling factors that met the minimum requirement of two iterations. In 50 independent experimental runs using the robust scaling factors obtained by the method, an average of 2.15 iterations was needed to achieve a positional accuracy within 5 ${\mu }\text{m}$. The main advantage of the proposed IDAM over conventional methods is its effectiveness for automatically finding robust parameters for online alignment systems in real time and with fewer experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spiral optimization (SPO) algorithm proposed by Tamura and Yasuda is a relatively novel and simple search concept inspired by natural spiral phenomena. This algorithm searches continuous space using no gradient and only spiral trajectories composed of spiral vectors generated by deterministic spiral models. The primary purpose of this paper is to propose conditions and settings that mathematically ensure the convergence of the SPO algorithm to a stationary point. The conditions relating to the sizes and directions of the spiral vectors and the initial search points are based on direct search theory and recent SPO algorithm theories. The presented convergence was numerically verified using test functions with different properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores supply chain systems coordination challenges in the presence of multiple heterogeneous risk sensitive retail buyers using the commonly seen markdown contract under both information symmetric and asymmetric settings. For each setting, we explore two scenarios. The first scenario allows the upstream manufacturer to freely set a separate contract to each risk averse retailer, whereas the second scenario specifies that the manufacturer has to grant the same contract to each risk averse retailer under the fair trade rule. We analytically show that the markdown contract which can achieve “perfect coordination” only exists in the first scenario (without the fair trade rule) under the information symmetric setting. For all the other scenarios, we find that perfect coordination cannot be achieved by the markdown contract, and hence we develop the computational algorithms to help identify the markdown contract parameter(s) which can achieve the “best possible coordination.” In addition, we reveal that the manufacturer’s risk attitude does significantly affect the achievability of perfect coordination. The findings of this paper also provide analytical evidence to show that the fair trade rule would do more harm than good for supply chain systems optimization under simple supply contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Role assignment is a critical element in the role-based collaboration process. There are many constraints to be considered when undertaking this task. This paper formalizes the group role assignment problem when faced with the constraint of conflicting agents, verifies the benefits of solving the problem, proves that such a problem is a subproblem of the extended integer linear programming (x-ILP) problem, proposes a practical approach to the solution, and assures performance based on the results of experiments. The contributions of this paper include: 1) formalization of the proposed problem; 2) verification of the benefit achieved by avoiding conflicts in role assignment through simulation; 3) theoretical proof that conflict avoidance is a subproblem of the x-ILP problem that is nonpolynomial-complete; and 4) a practical solution based on the IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization package (ILOG) and verification of the scale of problems that can be solved with ILOG. The proposed approach is validated by simulation experiments. Its efficiency is verified by comparison with the previous exhaustive search-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is an important challenge to detect an overlapping community and its evolving tendency in a complex network. To our best knowledge, there is no such an overlapping community detection method that exhibits high normalized mutual information (NMI) and ${F}$ -score, and can also predict an overlapping community’s future considering node evolution, activeness, and multiscaling. This paper presents a novel method based on node vitality, an extension of node fitness for modeling network evolution constrained by multiscaling and preferential attachment. First, according to a node’s dynamics such as link creation and destruction, we find node vitality by comparing consecutive network snapshots. Then, we combine it with the fitness function to obtain a new objective function. Next, by optimizing the objective function, we expand maximal cliques, reassign overlapping nodes, and find the overlapping community that matches not only the current network but also the future version of the network. Through experiments, we show that its NMI and ${F}$ -score exceed those of the state-of-the-art methods under diverse conditions of overlaps and connection densities. We also validate the effectiveness of node vitality for modeling a node’s evolution. Finally, we show how to detect an overlapping community in a real-world evolving network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Car sharing (CS) services are promising solutions complementary to the classic public transport forms. In order to make CS effectively competitive, suitable planning and management strategies are required. This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) for handling the user-based vehicle relocation problem by applying economic incentives ruled by a threshold policy. Unlike the existing approaches, a methodology is proposed for determining the optimal threshold, which considers explicitly the stochastic reactions of the customers to the incentives. To this aim, the CS system is described in detail by unified modeling language diagrams and is modeled in a discrete event system framework. Moreover, a closed-loop control strategy is introduced to implement the vehicle relocation policy on the basis of the system state and the best threshold values, evaluated by discrete event simulation and particle swarm optimization. A case study simulation analysis shows that the proposed DSS management strategy can significantly improve the system performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for battery modeling in online, real-time applications where accuracy is important but speed is the key. The framework allows users to select model structures with the smallest number of parameters that is consistent with the accuracy requirements of the target application. The tradeoff between accuracy and speed in a battery model identification process is explored using different model structures and parameter-fitting algorithms. Pareto optimal sets are obtained, allowing a designer to select an appropriate compromise between accuracy and speed. In order to get a clearer understanding of the battery model identification problem, “identification surfaces” are presented. As an outcome of the battery identification surfaces, a new analytical solution is derived for battery model identification using a closed-form formula to obtain a battery’s ohmic resistance and open circuit voltage from measurement data. This analytical solution is used as a benchmark for comparison of other fitting algorithms and it is also used in its own right in a practical scenario for state-of-charge estimation. A simulation study is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and the simulation results are verified by conducting experimental tests on a small NiMH battery pack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design optimization of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is a complex and a computationally expensive exercise that requires the identification of optimal vehicle dimensions offering the best tradeoffs between the objectives, while satisfying the set of design constraints. Although hull form optimization of marine vessels has long been an active area of research, limited attempts in the past have focused on the design optimization of UUVs and there are even fewer reports on the use of high-fidelity analysis methods within the course of optimization. While it is understood that the high-fidelity analysis is more accurate, they also tend to be far more computationally expensive. Thus, it is important to identify when a high-fidelity analysis is required as opposed to a low-fidelity estimate. The work reported in this paper is an extension of the authors previous work of a design optimization framework, where the design problem was solved using a low-fidelity model based on empirical estimates of drag. In this paper, the framework is extended to deal with high-fidelity estimates derived through seamless integration of computer-aided design, meshing and computational fluid dynamics analysis tools i.e., computer aided 3-D interactive application, ICEM, and FLUENT. The effects of using low-fidelity and high-fidelity analyses are studied in depth using a small-scale (length nominally less than 400 mm) and light-weight (less than 450 g) toy submarine. Useful insights on possible means to identify appropriateness of fidelity models via correlation measures are proposed. The term optimality used in this paper refers to optimal hull form shapes that satisfy placement of a set of prescribed internal components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely adopted customer-oriented methodology to assist in product design and development. In a traditional QFD-based product planning process, the importance weights of customer requirements (CRs) in house of quality are obtained by analyzing and generalizing the requirements of various customers, and the purpose of the subsequent optimal setting of engineering characteristics (ECs) and process parameters is to achieve a higher level of overall customer satisfaction (OCS). However, nowadays customers’ requirements are increasingly diversified and customers usually have heterogeneous preferences. Consequently, customers in a product market may have different purchasing choice behaviors and satisfaction criteria toward a new product. Therefore, heterogeneity of CRs should be considered in QFD-based optimization models to describe the relationship between CRs and ECs and to model the OCS. In this paper, a novel QFD-based product planning approach is proposed for a product market with diversified CRs by integrating consumer choice behavior analysis. The contributions of this paper include: 1) customers’ purchase choice rules are introduced into QFD-based product planning process to simulate the purchase behavior of a customer toward a product; 2) two new QFD-based optimization models under deterministic and multinomial logit consumer choice rules are proposed to help firms improve the product quality under environment of diversified CRs; 3) the established model under deterministic consumer choice rule is transformed into an equivalent linear model to facilitate the solving process; and 4) the established optimization models are further extended for products with both continuous and discrete target values of ECs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on applying multicriteria decision making tools to determine an optimal energy retrofit plan for a portfolio of buildings. We present a two-step decision making technique employing a multiobjective optimization algorithm followed by a multiattribute ranking procedure. The method aims at deciding, in an integrated way, the optimal energy retrofit plan for a whole stock of buildings, optimizing efficiency, sustainability, and comfort, while effectively allocating the available financial resources to the buildings. The proposed methodology is applied to a real stock of public buildings in Bari, Italy. The obtained results demonstrate that the approach effectively supports the city governance in making decisions for the optimal management of the buildings’ energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a novel Takagi-Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy classification system (FCS) is firstly presented for pattern classification tasks. It is distinguished by having the large margin criterion properly integrated into its objective function. In order to exploit the applicability of fuzzy systems in multiview scenarios, the proposed TSK-FCS is extended to a two-view version, called two-view TSK-FCS (TwoV-TSK-FCS), by using a collaborative learning mechanism. The adopted collaborative learning mechanism not only fully considers the independent information of each view, but also effectively discovers the correlation information hidden in the two views. Thus, the performance of TwoV-TSK-FCS can be enhanced accordingly. Comprehensive experiments on two-view synthetic and UCI datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-view FCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, price-controlled energy management is investigated in a bi-level optimization framework, that is, energy scheduling problem of smart homes (SHs) and generation scheduling and unit commitment (UC) problems of a generation company (GENCO). SHs as the responsive customers (respect to the energy management) include a variety of sources such as photovoltaic (PV) panels, diesel generator, and battery as an energy storage. In addition, SHs are able to transact electricity with the GENCO through the power system. In this paper, the goal of GENCO is to design an optimal energy management scheme (optimal price of electricity) to maximize its daily profit. Herein, each SH reacts to the energy management scheme and reschedules its energy resources to minimize its daily operation cost. In this paper, a scenario-based stochastic optimization approach is applied in the energy scheduling problem of an SH to address the variability and uncertainty issues of the PV panels. Also, a combination of genetic algorithm (GA) and linear programming is applied as the optimization tool for the energy scheduling problem of an SH. Moreover, lambda-iteration economic dispatch and GA techniques are applied to solve the generation scheduling and UC problems of the GENCO, respectively. The numerical study demonstrates that in order to reach the maximum profit of GENCO, the energy management must be optimally designed and implemented; otherwise, the energy management scheme may result in detriment. Moreover, it is shown that each SH is able to get benefit from the energy management scheme and minimize its daily operation cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the reconfigurable real-time systems that should be adapted to their environment under real-time constraints. The reconfiguration allows moving from one implementation to another by adding/removing/modifying parameters of real-time software tasks which should meet related deadlines. Implementing those systems as threads generates a complex system code due to the large number of threads, which may lead to a reconfiguration time overhead as well as the energy consumption and the memory allocation increase. Thus this paper proposes a multiobjective optimization approach for reconfigurable systems called MO2R2S for the development of a reconfigurable real-time system. Given a specification, the proposed approach aims to produce an optimal design while ensuring the system feasibility. We focus on three optimization criteria: 1) response time; 2) memory allocation; and 3) energy consumption. To address the portability issue, the optimal design is then transformed to an abstract code that may in turn be transformed to a concrete code which is specific to a procedural programming (i.e., POSIX) or an object-oriented language (i.e., RT-Java). The MO2R2S approach allows reducing the number of threads by minimizing the redundancy between the implementation sets. By an experimental study, such optimization permits to decrease the memory allocation by 28.89%, the energy consumption by 40.2%, and the response time by 61.32%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A system to perform video analytics is proposed using a dynamically tuned convolutional network. Videos are fetched from cloud storage, preprocessed, and a model for supporting classification is developed on these video streams using cloud-based infrastructure. A key focus in this paper is on tuning hyper-parameters associated with the deep learning algorithm used to construct the model. We further propose an automatic video object classification pipeline to validate the system. The mathematical model used to support hyper-parameter tuning improves performance of the proposed pipeline, and outcomes of various parameters on system’s performance is compared. Subsequently, the parameters that contribute toward the most optimal performance are selected for the video object classification pipeline. Our experiment-based validation reveals an accuracy and precision of 97% and 96%, respectively. The system proved to be scalable, robust, and customizable for a variety of different applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes two second-order continuous-time algorithms to solve the economic power dispatch problem in smart grids. The collective aim is to minimize a sum of generation cost function subject to the power demand and individual generator constraints. First, in the framework of nonsmooth analysis and algebraic graph theory, one distributed second-order algorithm is developed and guaranteed to find an optimal solution. As a result, the power demand constraints can be kept all the time under appropriate initial condition. The second algorithm is under a centralized framework, and the optimal solution is robust in the sense that different initial power conditions do not change the convergence of the optimal solution. Finally, simulation results based on five-unit system, IEEE 30-bus system, and IEEE 300-bus system show the effectiveness and performance of the proposed continuous-time algorithms. The examples also show that the convergence rate of second-order algorithm is faster than that of first-order distributed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a time-optimal point stabilization control for inherent unstable wheeled inverted pendulum (WIP) vehicles using quasi-convex optimization and B-spline adaptive interpolation techniques. First, to handle the difficulty caused by the inherent unstable characteristic, a state feedback control law is introduced to the state-space model deduced with the kinematic coupling relationship between the longitudinal motion and tilt angle of vehicle body. Then, by system discretization, a standard quasi-convex optimization problem is formulated to plan a time-optimal trajectory with various constraints being taken into account, and the optimization problem can be solved by a bisection method combined with solving a series of convex feasibility problems. Next, to obtain the analytic expression of the discrete optimal trajectory, a B-spline interpolation algorithm with adaptive curve refinement is presented based on feature points recognition. Furthermore, as the time-optimal trajectories with analytic expressions, including displacement, velocity, and acceleration trajectories, have been obtained, a proportional–integral–derivative (PID) tracking controller is applied to control the vehicle to track the optimal trajectories and, thus, the time-optimal point stabilization control for the WIP vehicle can be realized. Finally, simulation results of a numerical example is presented to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time taxi–passenger matching plays a critical role in modern taxi dispatch systems. Currently, the greedy strategy is widely adopted, which limits the quality of the service (QoS) and the profit of the entire system. There are two crucial tasks in this system: 1) the pairwise prioritization and 2) the matching of taxi–passenger pairs. In this paper, we develop a two-stage taxi–passenger matching system to deal with these two tasks. In the first stage, we design a fuzzy controller to assign a priority score to each taxi–passenger pair in real time. To ensure its performance on providing good QoS and profit, the fuzzy controller is optimized by an offline differential evolution algorithm. New individual representation is designed to optimize the membership functions and fuzzy rule base simultaneously. To accelerate the optimization process, the algorithm is implemented in a parallel way. Then, in the second stage, considering the priority scores as weights in the bipartite graph of taxi and passenger sets, we further apply a polynomial Kuhn–Munkres algorithm to find the maximum weight perfect matching in the bipartite graph. Simulated results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, which is able to enhance the QoS provided by the taxi system and improve the profit gained by the taxi service company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonlinear optimization problems with dynamical parameters are widely arising in many practical scientific and engineering applications, and various computational models are presented for solving them under the hypothesis of short-time invariance. To eliminate the large lagging error in the solution of the inherently dynamic nonlinear optimization problem, the only way is to estimate the future unknown information by using the present and previous data during the solving process, which is termed the future dynamic nonlinear optimization (FDNO) problem. In this paper, to suppress noises and improve the accuracy in solving FDNO problems, a novel noise-tolerant neural (NTN) algorithm based on zeroing neural dynamics is proposed and investigated. In addition, for reducing algorithm complexity, the quasi-Newton Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) method is employed to eliminate the intensively computational burden for matrix inversion, termed NTN-BFGS algorithm. Moreover, theoretical analyses are conducted, which show that the proposed algorithms are able to globally converge to a tiny error bound with or without the pollution of noises. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted to validate the superiority of the proposed NTN and NTN-BFGS algorithms for the online solution of FDNO problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a distributed compensation approach for the global optimization with separable objective functions and coupled constraints. By employing compensation variables, the global optimization problem can be solved without the information exchange of coupled constraints. The convergence analysis of the proposed algorithm is presented with the convergence condition through which a diminishing step-size with an upper bound can be determined. The convergence rate can be achieved at $O({lnT}/{\sqrt {T}})$. Moreover, the equilibrium of this algorithm is proved to converge at the optimal solution of the global optimization problem. The effectiveness and the practicability of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by the parameter optimization problem in smart building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a multiobjective fleet size and mix location-routing problem with time windows and designs a set of real-world benchmark instances. Then, two versions of multiobjective multiple neighborhood search algorithms based on decomposition and vector angle are developed for solving the problem. In the proposed algorithms, three different kinds of neighborhood search operators, including general local search, objective-specific local search, and large neighborhood search, are carefully designed and combined in a synergistic manner. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. Relationships between different objectives in this multiobjective problem are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) problems are often encountered in complex system design. Most of them need to be evaluated with a large number of interactive and qualitative indices, which are difficult to be addressed effectively through the existing methods. In this paper, a novel fuzzy Choquet integral-based grey comprehensive evaluation (GCE) method, called fuzzy grey Choquet integral (FGCI), is proposed to evaluate MCDM problems with many interactive and qualitative indices. In this method, expert evaluation of qualitative indices is represented through fuzzy linguistic values. Fuzzy values are defuzzified and standardized to obtain the original evaluation matrix. The original values are replaced by the correlation coefficients, which, to a certain extent, eliminate the influence of experts’ subjective preference. An improved teaching-learning-based optimization algorithm is employed to identify $ {\lambda }$ -fuzzy-measures following the weights given by experts in order to enhance the consistency of weights. Then the correlation coefficients are aggregated through Choquet integral among ${\lambda }$ -fuzzy-measures, which can reflect interactions among indices. In addition, according to the characteristics of ${\lambda }$ -fuzzy-measures, the construction guidelines for a corresponding index system are given to overcome the limitations of FGCI. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is demonstrated via a practical example of green design evaluation and compared with the GCE method. The results validate its feasibility and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of scheduling multiple generating units, an up/down decision for every generating unit has to be made for every hour on the planning horizon. Once the unit commitment is decided for every generating unit, a generation level (economic dispatch) from the committed unit is calculated to minimize the total operation cost. Such a problem is known as a unit commitment problem (UCP). Because an up/down pattern is expressed with a vector of binary variables, one has to solve a combinatorial optimization problem. Due to electricity liberalization or the introduction of distributed power sources in recent years, the need to solve the UCP by autonomous distributed agents, that is, solving distributed UCP (DUCP), comes about. This paper proposes a method of solving the DUCP with a Walrasian auction. The main feature of the proposed method is that not only a generation-level pattern but also an up/down pattern can be determined. The results of computational experiments show that the DUCP is solved through the cooperation of autonomous distributed agents by using the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]