Sharif Digital Repository

Previous researches have shown the success of using Reinforcement Learning in solving combinatorial optimization problems. The main idea of these methods is to learn (near) optimal evaluation functions to improve local searches and find (near) optimal solutions. STAGE algorithm, introduced by Boyan & Moore, is one of the most important algorithms in this area. In this paper, we focus on Bin-Packing problem, an important NP-Complete problem. We analyze cost surface structure of this problem and investigate "big valley" structure for the set of its local minima. The result gives reasons for STAGE's success in solving this problem. Then by comparing the results of experiments on Bin-Packing... 

A new adaptive real-coded memetic algorithm has been developed for continuous optimization problems. The proposed algorithm utilizes an adaptive variant of Continuous Ant Colony System for local search. Here new adaptive strategies are utilized for online tuning of the number of local search steps and the width of the search interval over each dimension of the search space. A new crossover scheme is also developed and utilized. The new algorithm has been examined with CEC 2005 benchmarks and compared with three other state of the art works in the field. The comparisons have showed relatively better results. © 2009 IEEE  

Meta-heuristic algorithms have been successfully applied to solve the redundancy allocation problem in recent years. Among these algorithms, the electromagnetism-like mechanism (EM) is a powerful population-based algorithm designed for continuous decision spaces. This paper presents an efficient memory-based electromagnetism-like mechanism called MBEM to solve the redundancy allocation problem. The proposed algorithm employs a memory matrix in local search to save the features of good solutions and feed it back to the algorithm. This would make the search process more efficient. To verify the good performance of MBEM, various test problems, especially the 33 well-known benchmark instances in... 

Facility location problem is one of the strategic logistical drivers within the supply chain which is a hard to solve optimization problem. In this study, we focus on the uncapacitated single-source multi-product production/ distribution facility location problem with the presence of set-up cost. To efficiently tackle this decision problem, two Lagrangian-based heuristics are proposed one of which incorporates integer cuts to strengthen the formulation. Local search operators are also embedded within these methods to improve the upper bounds as the search progresses. Three sets of instances with various characteristics are generated and used to evaluate the performance of the proposed... 

This paper presents a dynamic multi objective model for distribution network expansion, considering the distributed generators (DGs) and network reinforcements. The proposed model simultaneously optimizes three objective functions namely, total cost, emission cost and technical satisfaction (voltage profile) by finding the optimal schemes of timing, sizing, placement and DG technologies in a long term planning period (dynamic planning). The importance of each objective function can be changed in the interactive steps. The calculation algorithm is based on Chaotic Local Search with Modified Honey Bee Mating Optimization (CLSMHBMO). The effectiveness of the proposed model and the calculation... 

Nowadays pull system is widely used in many industries. In the recent decade, many researchers adopt pull system to supply chain and present preference of this system. In this paper, a general Pull system for a stochastic supply chain process will be adapted along with optimizing a Pull Stochastic Supply chain. This Supply Chain, SC, is used with combining CONWIP and KANBAN, the two famous pull systems, for controlling the SC. Under assumptions of stochastic demand rate, stochastic production and transportation times, and stochastic distributions for backlog cost, a simulation modeling is used. In optimization process, concerning supply chain complexity, a simulation optimization procedure... 

A capacitated location-multi-allocation-routing model is presented for a transportation network with travel times between the nodes represented by links on the network. The concept of multi-allocation arises from the possibility of allocating the population in a demand node to more than one server node. In normal conditions, travel time between two nodes is a fixed value. However, since the flow of population in a link can affect the travel time, here the impact of the population flow on link time is considered to be simultaneous. This way, distribution of the population over the network has a direct influence on the travel link times. It is assumed that all links are two-way and capacities... 

In this paper with the use of fuzzy genetic algorithm combination with evolutionary algorithms, as a method for local searching, it has been tried to exploit high capabilities of genetic algorithm, as a search algorithm, beside to other evolutionary algorithms, as local search algorithms, in order to increase efficiency of a rule learning system. For this purpose three hybrid algorithms have been used for solving the intrusion detection problem. These three algorithms are combination of genetic algorithm and SFL and PSO as three evolutionary algorithms which try to introduce efficient solutions for complex optimization problems by patterning from natural treatments. © 2007 IEEE  

In this paper, we propose a hybrid algorithm including Genetic Algorithm (GA), Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO), and Simulated Annealing (SA) metaheuristics for increasing the contrast of images. In this way, contrast enhancement is obtained by global transformation of the input intensities. Ant colony optimisation is used to generate the transfer functions which map the input intensities to the output intensities. Simulated annealing as a local search method is utilised to modify the transfer functions generated by ant colony optimisation. And genetic algorithm has the responsibility of evolutionary process of antsE characteristics. The employed fitness function operates automatically and... 

The effectiveness of the local search algorithms for shop scheduling problems is proved frequently. Local search algorithms like tabu search use neighborhood structures in order to obtain new solutions. This paper presents a new neighborhood for the job shop scheduling problem. In this neighborhood, few enhanced conditions are proposed to prevent cycle generation. These conditions allow that the neighborhood encompasses larger number of solutions without increasing the order of computational efforts  

Bayesian regularised genetic neural network (BRGNN) has been used for modelling the inhibition activity of 141 biphenylalanine derivatives as integrin antagonists. Three local pattern search (PS) methods, simulated annealing and threshold acceptance were combined with BRGNN in the form of a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA). The results obtained revealed that PS is a suitable method for improving the ability of BRGNN to break out from the local minima. The proposed HGA technique is able to retrieve important variables from complex systems and nonlinear search spaces for optimisation. Two models with 8-3-1 artificial neural network (ANN) architectures were developed for describingα 4β 7 and α 4β... 

An adaptive tracker to address the problem of tracking objects which undergo abrupt and significant motion changes is introduced. Abrupt motion of objects is an issue which makes tracking a challenging task. To address this problem, a new adaptive motion model is proposed. The model is integrated into the sequential importance resampling particle filter (SIR PF), which is the most popular probabilistic tracking framework. In this model, in each time step, if necessary, the particles' configurations are updated by using feedback information from the observation likelihood. In order to overcome the local-trap problem, local search algorithm with best improvement strategy is used to update... 

Portfolio theory has found its model in numerous engineering applications for optimizing the electrical generation mix of an electricity area. However, to have better performance of this theory, this paper presents a new heuristic method as known modified artificial bee colony (MABC) to portfolio optimization problem. Moreover, we consider both dis-patchable and non-dis-patchable constrains variables and energy sources. Note that the proposed MABC method uses a Chaotic Local Search (CLS) to enhance the self searching ability of the original ABC algorithm. Resulting, in this paper a portfolio theory-based MABC model that explicitly distinguishes between electricity generation (energy),... 

Scheduling projects incorporated with materials ordering results in a more realistic problem. This paper deals with the combined problem of project scheduling and material ordering. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the total cost of this problem by determining the optimal values of activity duration, activity finish time and the material ordering schedule subject to constraints. We employ a genetic algorithm approach to solve it. Elements of the algorithm, such as chromosome structure, unfitness function, crossover, mutation and local search operations are explained. The results of the experimentation are quite satisfactory  

In this article, scheduling and rescheduling problems with increasing processing time and new job insertion are studied for reprocessing problems in the remanufacturing process. To handle the unpredictability of reprocessing time, an experience-based strategy is used. Rescheduling strategies are applied for considering the effect of increasing reprocessing time and the new subassembly insertion. To optimize the scheduling and rescheduling objective, a discrete harmony search (DHS) algorithm is proposed. To speed up the convergence rate, a local search method is designed. The DHS is applied to two real-life cases for minimizing the maximum completion time and the mean of earliness and... 

Given a triangulation of a point set on the plane, dilation of any pair of the points is the ratio of their shortest path length to their Euclidean distance. The maximum dilation over all pairs of points is called the dilation of this triangulation. Minimum dilation triangulation problem seeks a triangulation with the least possible dilation of an input point set. For this problem no polynomial time algorithm is known. We present an exact algorithm based on a branch and bound method for finding minimum dilation triangulations. This deterministic algorithm after generating an initial solution, iteratively computes a lower bound for the answer and then applies a branch and bound method to find... 

In this article, scheduling and rescheduling problems with increasing processing time and new job insertion are studied for reprocessing problems in the remanufacturing process. To handle the unpredictability of reprocessing time, an experience-based strategy is used. Rescheduling strategies are applied for considering the effect of increasing reprocessing time and the new subassembly insertion. To optimize the scheduling and rescheduling objective, a discrete harmony search (DHS) algorithm is proposed. To speed up the convergence rate, a local search method is designed. The DHS is applied to two real-life cases for minimizing the maximum completion time and the mean of earliness and...