Human lifting simulation using a multi-objective optimization approach

This paper presents a multiobjective optimization (MOO) approach to predicting dynamic lifting for a three-dimensional, highly redundant digital human model with 55 degrees of freedom. The optimization problem is formulated to optimize two objective functions simultaneously—dynamic effort and stability—subject to basic physical and kinematical constraints. The predictive dynamics approach is used to solve for the joint angles, torque profiles, and ground reaction forces. The weighted sum approach of MOO is used to aggregate the two objective functions, and the Pareto optimal set for the problem is generated by systematically varying the weighting parameters for the objective functions. Experimental data are used to validate the final simulation. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the effect of the weighting parameters for the two objective functions on the predicted box-lifting strategies. The results show that the proposed MOO approach improves the simulation results compared to the single objective optimization formulation. Also, the formulation is less sensitive to the weighting coefficient for the stability criterion.     

An exploratory approach for adaptive policymaking by using multi-objective robust optimization

Developing robust policies for complex systems is a profound challenge because of their nonlinear and unpredictable nature. Dealing with these characteristics requires innovative approaches. A possible approach is to design policies that can be adapted over time in response to how the future unfolds. An essential part of adaptive policymaking is specifying under what conditions, and in which way, to adapt the policy. The performance of an adaptive policy is critically dependent on this: if the policy is adapted too late or too early, significant deterioration in policy performance can be incurred. An additional complicating factor is that in almost any policy problem, a multiplicity of divergent and potentially conflicting objectives has to be considered. In this paper we tackle both problems simultaneously through the use of multi-objective robust simulation optimization. Robust optimization helps in specifying appropriate conditions for adapting a policy, by identifying conditions that produce satisfactory results across a large ensemble of scenarios. Multi-objective optimization helps in identifying such conditions for a set of criteria, and providing insights into the tradeoffs between these criteria. Simulation is used for evaluating policy performance. This approach results in the identification of multiple alternative conditions under which to adapt a policy, rather than a single set of conditions. This creates the possibility of an informed policy debate on trade-offs. The approach is illustrated through a case study on designing a robust policy for supporting the transition toward renewable energy systems in the European Union. The results indicate that the proposed approach can be efficiently used for developing policy suggestions and for improving decision support for policymakers. By extension, it is possible to apply this methodology in dynamically complex and deeply uncertain systems such as public health, financial systems, transportation, and housing.     

A genetic algorithm approach for multi-objective optimization of supply chain networks

Supply chain network (SCN) design is to provide an optimal platform for efficient and effective supply chain management. It is an important and strategic operations management problem in supply chain management, and usually involves multiple and conflicting objectives such as cost, service level, resource utilization, etc. This paper proposes a new solution procedure based on genetic algorithms to find the set of Pareto-optimal solutions for multi-objective SCN design problem. To deal with multi-objective and enable the decision maker for evaluating a greater number of alternative solutions, two different weight approaches are implemented in the proposed solution procedure. An experimental study using actual data from a company, which is a producer of plastic products in Turkey, is carried out into two stages. While the effects of weight approaches on the performance of proposed solution procedure are investigated in the first stage, the proposed solution procedure and simulated annealing are compared according to quality of Pareto-optimal solutions in the second stage.     

Cloud detection in satellite images using multi-objective social spider optimization

Cloud detection algorithms have emerged to automate image data analysis because of its prime influential factor in remote sensing image quality. Cloud detection algorithm still needs domain-expert intervention and large number of training examples to ensure good performance whose acquirement becomes difficult due to unavailability of labeled data as well as the time and process heads involved. The paper puts forward multi-objective social spider optimization (MOSSO) based efficient clustering technique to detect clouds in the visible range. This paper explains the proposed MOSSO algorithm along-with the analysis carried on 14 benchmark two-objective test problems against MOEA/D, MODE, MOPSO and SPEA2 multi-objective algorithms. Further, the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed algorithm are analyzed and have been used for the implementation of an efficient clustering technique named as MOSSO-C. Optimal centroid matrix for clustering is attained in MOSSO-C through environmental selection whose performance evaluation has been done on six synthetic databases and are compared with above mentioned conventional multi-objective algorithms. The obtained results encourage the use of MOSSO-C technique to get labeled data for training process of neural network classifier. This approach efficiently classifies the cloudy pixels against various Earth’s surfaces (water, vegetation and land). The paper also discusses the performance evaluation of proposed technique on four Landsat 8 data which shows on an average 96.37% performance accuracy in detecting cloudy pixels.     

Physical programming for preference driven evolutionary multi-objective optimization

Preference articulation in multi-objective optimization could be used to improve the pertinency of solutions in an approximated Pareto front. That is, computing the most interesting solutions from the designer's point of view in order to facilitate the Pareto front analysis and the selection of a design alternative. This articulation can be achieved in an a priori, progressive, or a posteriori manner. If it is used within an a priori frame, it could focus the optimization process toward the most promising areas of the Pareto front, saving computational resources and assuring a useful Pareto front approximation for the designer. In this work, a physical programming approach embedded in an evolutionary multi-objective optimization is presented as a tool for preference inclusion. The results presented and the algorithm developed validate the proposal as a potential tool for engineering design by means of evolutionary multi-objective optimization.     

A novel evolutionary root system growth algorithm for solving multi-objective optimization problems

This paper proposes a novel multi-objective root system growth optimizer (MORSGO) for the copper strip burdening optimization. The MORSGO aims to handle multi-objective problems with satisfactory convergence and diversity via implementing adaptive root growth operators with a pool of multi-objective search rules and strategies. Specifically, the single-objective root growth operators including branching, regrowing and auxin-based tropisms are deliberately designed. They have merits of appropriately balancing exploring & exploiting and self-adaptively varying population size to reduce redundant computation. The effective multi-objective strategies including the fast non-dominated sorting and the farthest-candidate selection are developed for saving and retrieving the Pareto optimal solutions with remarkable approximation as well as uniform spread of Pareto-optimal solutions. With comprehensive evaluation against a suit of benchmark functions, the MORSGO is verified experimentally to be superior or at least comparable to its competitors in terms of the IGD and HV metrics. The MORSGO is then validated to solve the real-world copper strip burdening optimization with different elements. Computation results verifies the potential and effectiveness of the MORSGO to resolve complex industrial process optimization.     

Identifying key players in large social networks by using a multi-objective artificial bee colony optimization approach

Identifying a set of individuals that have an influential relevance and act as key players is a matter of interest in many real world situations, especially in those related to the Internet. Although several approaches have been proposed in order to identify key players sets, they mainly focus just on the optimization of a single objective. This may lead to a poor performance since the sets identified are not usually able to perform well in real life applications where more objectives of interest are taken into account. Multi-objective optimization seems the natural extension for this task, but there is a lack of this type of methodologies in the scientific literature. An efficient Multi-Objective Artificial Bee Colony (MOABC) algorithm is proposed to address the key players identification problem and is applied in the context of six networks of different dimensions and characteristics. The proposed approach is able to best identify the key players than the ones previously proposed, especially in the context of large social networks. The model performance of the proposed approach has been evaluated according to different quality metrics. The results from the MOABC execution show important improvements with respect to the best multi-objective results in the scientific literature, specifically, in average, 13.20% of improvement in Hypervolume, 120.39% in Coverage Relation and 125.52% in number of non-dominated solutions. Even more, the proposed algorithm is also more robust when repeating executions.     

A novel group search optimizer for multi-objective optimization

In this paper, a novel multi-objective group search optimizer named NMGSO is proposed for solving the multi-objective optimization problems. To simplify the computation, the scanning strategy of the original GSO is replaced by the limited pattern search procedure. To enrich the search behavior of the rangers, a special mutation with a controlling probability is designed to balance the exploration and exploitation at different searching stages and randomness is introduced in determining the coefficients of members to enhance the diversity. To handle multiple objectives, the non-dominated sorting scheme and multiple producers are used in the algorithm. In addition, the kernel density estimator is used to keep diversity. Simulation results based on a set of benchmark functions and comparisons with some methods demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm, especially for the high-dimensional problems.     

Incorporation of implicit decision-maker preferences in multi-objective evolutionary optimization using a multi-criteria classification method

Nowadays, most Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEA) concentrate mainly on searching for an approximation of the Pareto frontier to solve a multi-objective optimization problem. However, finding this set does not completely solve the problem. The decision-maker (DM) still has to choose the best compromise solution from that set. But as the number of criteria increases, several important difficulties arise in performing this task. Identifying the Region of Interest (ROI), according to the DM’s preferences, is a promising alternative that would facilitate the selection process. This paper approaches the incorporation of preferences into a MOEA in order to characterize the ROI by a multi-criteria classification method. This approach is called Hybrid Multi-Criteria Sorting Genetic Algorithm and is composed of two phases. First, a metaheuristic is used to generate a small set of solutions that are classified in ordered categories by the DM. Thus, the DM’s preferences will be reflected indirectly in this set. In the second phase, a multi-criteria sorting method is combined with an evolutionary algorithm. The first one is used to classify new solutions. Those classified as ‘satisfactory’ are used for creating a selective pressure towards the ROI. The effectiveness of our method was proved in nine instances of a public project portfolio problem. The obtained results indicate that our approach achieves a good characterization of the ROI, and outperforms the standard NSGA-II in simple and complex problems. Also, these results confirm that our approach is able to deal with many-objective problems.     

Handling expensive multi-objective optimization problems with a cluster-based neighborhood regression model

This paper gives attention to multi-objective optimization in scenarios where objective function evaluation is expensive, that is, expensive multi-objective optimization. We firstly propose a cluster-based neighborhood regression model, which incorporates the linear regression technique to predict the descent direction and generate new potential offspring. Combining this model with the classical decomposition-based multi-objective optimization framework, we propose an efficient and effective algorithm for tackling computationally expensive multi-objective optimization problems. As opposed to the conventional approach of replacing the original time-consuming objective functions with the approximated ones obtained by surrogate model, the proposed algorithm incorporates the proposed regression model to serve as an operator producing higher-quality offspring so that the algorithm requires fewer iterations to reach a given solution quality. The proposed algorithm is compared with several state-of-the-art surrogate-assisted algorithms on a variety of well-known benchmark problems. Empirical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms or is competitive with other peer algorithms, and has the ability to keep a good trade-off between solution quality and running time within a fairly small number of function evaluations. In particular, our proposed algorithm shows obvious superiority in terms of the computational time used for the algorithm components, and can obtain acceptable solutions for expensive problems with high efficiency.     

Nonlinear channel equalizer design using directional evolutionary multi-objective optimization

In this paper, a new equalizer learning scheme is introduced based on the algorithm of the directional evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMOO). Whilst nonlinear channel equalizers such as the radial basis function (RBF) equalizers have been widely studied to combat the linear and nonlinear distortions in the modern communication systems, most of them do not take into account the equalizers’ generalization capabilities. In this paper, equalizers are designed aiming at improving their generalization capabilities. It is proposed that this objective can be achieved by treating the equalizer design problem as a multi-objective optimization (MOO) problem, with each objective based on one of several training sets, followed by deriving equalizers with good capabilities of recovering the signals for all the training sets. Conventional EMOO which is widely applied in the MOO problems suffers from disadvantages such as slow convergence speed. Directional EMOO improves the computational efficiency of the conventional EMOO by explicitly making use of the directional information. The new equalizer learning scheme based on the directional EMOO is applied to the RBF equalizer design. Computer simulation demonstrates that the new scheme can be used to derive RBF equalizers with good generalization capabilities, i.e., good performance on predicting the unseen samples.     

A novel approach to combine features for salient object detection using constrained particle swarm optimization

Despite significant amount of research works, the best available visual attention models still lag far behind human performance in predicting salient object. In this paper, we present a novel approach to detect a salient object which involves two phases. In the first phase, three features such as multi-scale contrast, center-surround histogram and color spatial distribution are obtained as described in Liu et al. model. Constrained Particle Swarm Optimization is used in the second phase to determine an optimal weight vector to combine these features to obtain saliency map to distinguish a salient object from the image background. To achieve this, we defined a simple fitness function which highlights a salient object region with well-defined boundary and effectively suppresses the background regions in an image. The performance is evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively on a publicly available dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of precision, recall, F -measure and area under curve.     

A multi-objective nonlinear optimization approach to designing effective air quality control policies

This paper presents the implementation of a two-objective optimization methodology to select effective tropospheric ozone pollution control strategies on a mesoscale domain. The objectives considered are (a) the emission reduction cost and (b) the Air Quality Index. The control variables are the precursor emission reductions due to available technologies. The nonlinear relationship linking air quality objective and precursor emissions is described by artificial neural networks, identified by processing deterministic Chemical Transport Modeling system simulations. Pareto optimal solutions are calculated with the Weighted Sum Strategy. The two-objective problem has been applied to a complex domain in Northern Italy, including the Milan metropolitan area, a region characterized by frequent and persistent ozone episodes.     

Lifting motion simulation using a hybrid approach

In this study, a hybrid dynamic model for lifting motion simulation is presented. The human body is represented by a two-dimensional (2D) five-segment model. The lifting motions are predicted by solving a nonlinear optimisation problem, the objective function of which is defined based on a minimal-effort performance criterion. In the optimisation procedure, the joint angular velocities are bounded by time-functional constraints that are determined by actual motions. Symmetric lifting motions performed by younger and older adults under varied task conditions were simulated. Comparisons between the simulation results and actual motion data were made for model evaluation. The results showed that the mean and median joint angle errors were less than 10°, which suggests the proposed model is able to accurately simulate 2D lifting motions. The proposed model is also comparable with the existing motion simulation models in terms of the prediction accuracy. Strengths and limitations of this hybrid model are discussed.     

Hybrid multi-objective shape design optimization using Taguchi’s method and genetic algorithm

This research is based on a new hybrid approach, which deals with the improvement of shape optimization process. The objective is to contribute to the development of more efficient shape optimization approaches in an integrated optimal topology and shape optimization area with the help of genetic algorithms and robustness issues. An improved genetic algorithm is introduced to solve multi-objective shape design optimization problems. The specific issue of this research is to overcome the limitations caused by larger population of solutions in the pure multi-objective genetic algorithm. The combination of genetic algorithm with robust parameter design through a smaller population of individuals results in a solution that leads to better parameter values for design optimization problems. The effectiveness of the proposed hybrid approach is illustrated and evaluated with test problems taken from literature. It is also shown that the proposed approach can be used as first stage in other multi-objective genetic algorithms to enhance the performance of genetic algorithms. Finally, the shape optimization of a vehicle component is presented to illustrate how the present approach can be applied for solving multi-objective shape design optimization problems.     

On multi-objective optimization of geometry of staggered herringbone micromixer

A design methodology for micromixers is presented which systematically integrates computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with an optimization methodology based on the use of design of experiments (DOE), function approximation technique (FA) and multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). The methodology allows the simultaneous investigation of the effect of geometric parameters on the mixing performance of micromixers whose design strategy is based fundamentally on the generation of chaotic advection. The methodology has been applied on a Staggered Herringbone Micromixer (SHM) at several Reynolds numbers. The geometric features of the SHM are optimized and their effects on mixing are evaluated. The degree of mixing and the pressure drop are the performance criteria to define the efficiency of the micromixer for different design requirements.     

An efficient multi-objective optimization method for black-box functions using sequential approximate technique

Multi-objective optimization problems in practical engineering usually involve expensive black-box functions. How to reduce the number of function evaluations at a good approximation of Pareto frontier has been a crucial issue. To this aim, an efficient multi-objective optimization method based on a sequential approximate technique is suggested in this paper. In each iteration, according to the prediction of radial basis function with a micro multi-objective genetic algorithm, an extended trust region updating strategy is adopted to adjust the design region, a sample inheriting strategy is presented to reduce the number of new function evaluations, and then a local-densifying strategy is proposed to improve the accuracy of approximations in concerned regions. At the end of each iteration, the obtained actual Pareto optimal points are stored in an external archive and are updated as the iteration process. The effect of the present method is demonstrated by eight test functions. Finally, it is employed to perform the structure optimization of a vehicle door.     

Simulation based optimization of a train maintenance facility

In this paper, a simulation based optimization method is developed for optimization of scheduling policies. This method uses the technique of coupling industrial simulation software with a multi-objective optimizer based on genetic algorithms. It is used to optimize the performances of a railway maintenance facility by choosing the best scheduling policy. Numerical results show that a significant improvement is achieved with respect to the simulation results of the existing system. The method adapted by our problem can be extended to deal with the selection of scheduling rules in using other types of simulation models.     

A novel multi-objective immune algorithm with a decomposition-based clonal selection

In recent years, a number of multi-objective immune algorithms (MOIAs) have been proposed as inspired by the information processing in biologic immune system. Since most MOIAs encourage to search around some boundary and less-crowded areas using the clonal selection principle, they have been validated to show the effectiveness on tackling various kinds of multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs). The crowding distance metric is often used in MOIAs as a diversity metric to reflect the status of population’s diversity, which is employed to clone less-crowded individuals for evolution. However, this kind of cloning may encounter some difficulties when tackling some complicated MOPs (e.g., the UF problems with variable linkages). To alleviate the above difficulties, a novel MOIA with a decomposition-based clonal selection strategy (MOIA-DCSS) is proposed in this paper. Each individual is associated to one subproblem using the decomposition approach and then the performance enhancement on each subproblem can be easily quantified. Then, a novel decomposition-based clonal selection strategy is designed to clone the solutions with the larger improvements for the subproblems, which encourages to search around these subproblems. Moreover, differential evolution is employed in MOIA-DCSS to strength the exploration ability and also to improve the population’s diversity. To evaluate the performance of MOIA-DCSS, twenty-eight test problems are used with the complicated Pareto-optimal sets and fronts. The experimental results validate the superiority of MOIA-DCSS over four state-of-the-art multi-objective algorithms (i.e., NSLS, MOEA/D-M2M, MOEA/D-DRA and MOEA/DD) and three competitive MOIAs (i.e., NNIA, HEIA, and AIMA).     

Illustration of fairness in evolutionary multi-objective optimization

It is widely assumed that evolutionary algorithms for multi-objective optimization problems should use certain mechanisms to achieve a good spread over the Pareto front. In this paper, we examine such mechanisms from a theoretical point of view and analyze simple algorithms incorporating the concept of fairness. This mechanism tries to balance the number of offspring of all individuals in the current population. We rigorously analyze the runtime behavior of different fairness mechanisms and present illustrative examples to point out situations, where the right mechanism can speed up the optimization process significantly. We also indicate drawbacks for the use of fairness by presenting instances, where the optimization process is slowed down drastically.