Hybrid elitist-ant system for a symmetric traveling salesman problem: case of Jordan

This work investigates the performance of a hybrid population-based meta-heuristic with an external memory structure of a hybrid elitist-ant system (elitist-AS). This memory is known as an elite pool, which contains high quality and diverse solutions to maintain a balance between diversity and quality of the search. This may guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of the search, which could enhance the performance of the algorithm across different instances. A very well known and intensively studied NP-hard optimization problem has been selected to test the performance of the hybrid elitist-AS via its consistency, effectiveness and efficiency. This famous problem is the symmetric traveling salesman problem. The elitist-AS is a class of ant colony optimization techniques which are known to be outstanding for the traveling salesman problem where they have the ability to find the shortest tours guided by the heuristic and the pheromone trail information. An iterated local search is combined with elitist-AS to intensify the search around elite solution and maintains the solution’s exploitation mechanism. Experimental results showed that the performance, compared to the best known results, is optimal for many instances. This finding indicates the effectiveness, efficiency and consistency in diversifying the search while intensifying high-quality solutions. This outstanding performance is due to the utilization of an elite pool along with diversification and intensification mechanisms. In addition, this work proposes two instances that consist of 26 Jordanian cities and 1094 Jordanian locations which have been generated based on coordinates and distances similar to the format of the selected symmetric traveling salesman problem. This step is meant to contribute to finding a solution for a real-world problem and further test the performance of the hybrid elitist-AS.

     

Changes in Fatty Acid, Tocopherol and Xanthophyll Contents During the Development of Tunisian-Grown Pecan Nuts

Among oil compounds, fatty acids, tocopherols and xanthophylls (lutein and zeaxanthin) are of special interest due to their nutritional properties. The identification and quantification of these compounds in pecan nuts (Carya illinoinensis) could therefore be very useful to produce functional foods rich in compounds of this type. This paper reports studies on their accumulation and the effect of ripening on the content of these high value-added compounds. The total lipid content increased during the ripening. Saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids decreased significantly, whereas, monounsaturated fatty acids increased during the ripening of pecan nut fruit. Maximum levels of total tocopherol (279.53 mg/kg oil) and xanthophyll (6.18 mg/kg oil) were detected at 20th weeks after the flowering date. These amounts decreased gradually as ripening advances. The early stages of pecan ripening seem to have nutritional and pharmaceutical interests. These results may be useful for evaluating the pecan nut quality and determining the optimal period when the pecans accumulated the maximum of these nutritional and healthy compounds.     

Observer-based approach to fault detection and isolation fornonlinear systems

The design of a residual generator for fault detection and isolation (FDI) in nonlinear systems which are affine in the control signals and in the failure modes is studied, First, the problem statement used for linear systems is extended, and a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution is given. Next, circumstances under which high-gain observers for uniformly observable systems can be used in the synthesis of the residual generator are provided     

CONSENSUS FUNCTIONS FOR CLUSTER ENSEMBLES

The major task of clustering is to group an heterogeneous population into unknown groups based on a similarity measure. In order to enhance the robustness and the stability of unsupervised classification solutions, clustering ensembles are used; they are considered to be a powerful tool to deal with this issue. Individual clusterers consolidate the process of decision making through the concept of weighting. The aim is to determine an effective combination method that makes use of the benefits of each clusterer while avoiding its weaknesses. In this paper, we study the problem of combining multiple partitioning without accessing the original features. A genetic algorithm is proposed using three different fitness scores. Following three scenarios: Object Distributed Clustering, Feature Distributed Clustering, and Robust Centralized Clustering, the proposed consensus functions algorithm outperforms three existing ones: Cluster-based Similarity Partitioning Algorithm, HyperGraph Partitioning Algorithm and Meta-Clustering Algorithm.     

A heuristic algorithm for the just-in-time single machine scheduling problem with setups: a comparison with simulated annealing

This paper addresses the single machine early/tardy problem with unrestricted common due date and sequence-dependent setup times. Two algorithms are introduced to reach near-optimum solutions: the SAPT, a heuristic tailored for the problem, and a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm. It will be shown that SA provides solutions with slightly better quality; however, SAPT requires much less computational time. SAPT-SA is a hybrid heuristic that combines both approaches to obtain high quality solutions with low computational cost. Solutions provided by the three algorithms were compared to optimal solutions for problems with up to 25 jobs and to each other for larger problems.     

Amorphous-silicon field-effect device and possible application

The characteristics of an insulated-gate field-effect transistor made from amorphous silicon (a-Si) deposited in a glow discharge are discussed. It is suggested that the a-Si device could be applied with advantage in an addressable matrix of a liquid-crystal display panel.     

On uniform observation of nonuniformly observable systems

In [4,7,9,12], classes of nonlinear systems are considered for which observers can be designed. Although observability of nonlinear systems is known to be dependent on the input, the proposed observers have the property that the estimation error decays to zero irrespective of the input. In the first part of this paper, it is shown that this phenomenon follows from a common property of these systems: for all of them, the “unobservable states” with respect to some input, are in some sense “stable” (in the linear case, these systems are called detectable), and for this reason, a reduced order observer can be designed. In the second part is given a more general class of nonlinear systems for which such an observer can be designed.     

Exact and heuristic algorithms for the aerial refueling parallel machine scheduling problem with due date-to-deadline window and ready times

The Aerial Refueling Scheduling Problem (ARSP) can be defined as determining the refueling completion times for fighter aircrafts (jobs) on multiple tankers (machines) to minimize the total weighted tardiness. ARSP can be modeled as a parallel machine scheduling with ready times and due date-to-deadline window to minimize total weighted tardiness. ARSP assumes that the jobs have different ready times and a due date-to-deadline window between refueling due date and a deadline to return without refueling. In this paper, we first formulate the ARSP as a mixed integer programming model. The objective function is a piece-wise tardiness cost that takes into account due date-to-deadline windows and job priorities. Since ARSP is NP-hard, two heuristics are proposed to obtain solutions in reasonable computation times, namely (1) modified ATC rule (MATC), (2) a simulated annealing method (SA). The proposed heuristic algorithms are tested in terms of solution quality and CPU time through computational experiments with data randomly generated to represent aerial refueling operations of an in-theater air operation. Solutions provided by both algorithms were compared to optimal solutions for problems with up to 12 jobs and to each other for larger problems with up to 60 jobs. The results show that, MATC is more likely to outperform SA especially when the problem size increases, although it has significantly worse performance than SA in terms of deviation from optimal solution for small size problems. Moreover CPU time performance of MATC is significantly better than SA in both cases.     

Responses of single and group piles within MSE walls under static and cyclic lateral loads

To investigate the behavior of piles and the performance of the mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls under static and cyclic lateral loading, six reduced-scale model tests of single and group piles within the MSE walls were conducted inside a test box. In the single pile tests, a hollow aluminum tube as a pile was placed at a distance of 2D or 4D (D is pile diameter) behind the wall facing, while in the group pile tests, the piles were only placed at the distance of 2D with a spacing of 3.3D between the piles. The piles were subjected to static lateral loading only and cyclic lateral loading followed by static loading until failure. The test results showed that the lateral load capacity of each pile in the group pile test was approximately 60% that of the single pile, while the wall facing displacements and the geogrid strains in the group pile test were larger than those in the single pile test. The lateral pile capacity, the wall facing displacement, the strain in the geogrid, and the lateral earth pressure behind the wall facing in the static and cyclic loading tests were evaluated at the pile head displacement equal to 20%D.     

Antioxidant and antithrombotic effects of green mussels (Perna canaliculus) in rats

In the past decade, the use of marine mussels as seafood is being more popular. They considered being a rich source of various nutritional bioactive compounds that aroused the scientific community's interest. This study investigated the antioxidant and the antithrombotic consequences on Sprague-Dawley male rats after adding dried New Zealand mussel Perna canaliculus in their diet. The biochemical, hematological and histopathological changes were also observed. Forty rats were divided into four groups according to the amount of dried mussels in their diet, in addition to a control group that consumed a basal diet only. Group 1 consumed 25% dried mussels in its basal diet; Group 2 consumed 35% dried mussels in its basal diet, and Group 3 was consumed 45% dried mussels in its basal diet. The biochemical parameters showed improvements in liver function. Interestingly, the lipid profile decreased, especially the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels which were reduced significantly in Group 3 (p < .01). These observations were accompanied by a decrease in iron levels significantly as the amount of dried mussels increased (p < .01). Furthermore, the noticed changes in the hematological profile prove that there is an increase in antithrombotic activity. Dried mussels had potent antioxidant effects in the liver as shown by increased lipid peroxide (p < .05), reduced glutathione (p < .05), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px; p < .05). Additionally, antioxidant activity in the kidney was shown to increase through GSH-Px activity (p < .01). In conclusion, these results indicate that consuming dried mussels resulted in improved biochemical and antioxidants activities and could be used as an antithrombotic agent.