Multi-plant production scheduling in SMEs

Traditionally, companies used to view themselves as separate entities and did not devote efforts to collaborate with other echelons of the extended enterprise. This even happened at multi-site companies owning different plants that belonged to the same supply chain. However, manufacturing facilities of the same supply chain should intensively share information and coordinate planning and scheduling tasks in order to get a globally optimized solution. This paper discusses some specific characteristics of the planning and scheduling problem in the extended enterprise including an analysis of a case study, and reviews the available state-of-the-art research studies in this field. Most studies suggest that integrated approaches can have a significant impact on the system performance, in terms of lower production costs, and less inventory levels. The paper provides some conclusions and suggestions of future works.     

A visual tool for computer supported learning: The robot motion planning example

We introduce an effective computer aided learning visual tool (CALVT) to teach graph-based applications. We present the robot motion planning problem as an example of such applications. The proposed tool can be used to simulate and/or further to implement practical systems in different areas of computer science such as graphics, computational geometry, robotics and networking. In the robot motion planning example, CALVT enables users to setup the working environment by creating obstacles and a robot of different shapes, specifying starting and goal positions, and setting other path or environment parameters from a user-friendly interface. The path planning system involves several phases. Each of these modules is complex and therefore we provide the possibility of visualizing graphically the output of each phase. Based on our experience, this tool has been an effective one in classroom teaching. It not only cuts down, significantly, on the instructor’s time and effort but also motivates senior/graduate students to pursue work in this specific area of research.     

上海市松江新城突进式发展的体制创新与探索

本文用理论和现实的案例分析详细阐述了“经营城市”的六项特征和“三赢”的理念 ,简要介绍了松江新城在财政不出一分钱的情况下为取得突进式发展所采取的制度创新和探索 ,并总结了两点如何树立规划权威性的经验。     

Upgrading coal-derived liquids to diesel fuel

Distilled fractions of a coal-derived liquid from the H-Coal process were upgraded to diesel fuel by catalytic hydrotreatment. The total hydrotreated products were distilled into naphtha (<180°C) and diesel fuel fractions (>180°C) and the diesel fractions were analysed for hydrocarbon-type composition, hydrogen content and some diesel fuel properties. GC—MS-analyses were carried out on the hydrocarbon-type fractions to identify individual chemical compounds. To investigate the effect of different distillation cut points on diesel fuel yield and properties, cut points for one hydrotreated product were varied. The diesel fuel cetane numbers were correlated with percentage hydrogen, total aromatics and saturates. Cetane numbers above 40 were obtained for diesel fuels containing (i) more than 75% saturates, (ii) less than 15% total aromatics and (iii) a hydrogen content above 12.8%. Compounds identified by GC—MS-analyses (in the diesel fractions) were typical aromatic and cycloparaffin compounds. Normal-and iso-paraffin compounds were not detected. By varying the distillation cut point from 135 to 180°C, the cetane number of the residual diesel fraction improved from 37 to 44. This increase is ascribed to the removal of aromatic compounds in the 135–180°C boiling point range.     

价格不确定情况下炼厂生产计划的优化

生产计划的编制是炼油企业生产经营管理中的一个关键环节，然而由于市场变化的不确定性，使企业制度长远规划受到限制，笔者将多目标规划应用于炼厂价格不确定情况下生产计划的制定，使所得到的生产计划在一定程度上反映市场的变化并能使企业的生产效益最优，为企业管理决策者进行长远规划给予指导。通过实例验证了该方法的可行性。     

一种新的位置数据融合方法的研究

给出了一新的基于团队一致法的多传感器位置数据融合方法，该方法按传感器队中的每个成员的测量不确定性，构造团队期望效用函数（或密度），并基于该期望效用函数求得位置参数估计，其优点是可消除失效传感器和测量值为野值的传感器的影响，本文给出了仿真结果。     

关于混联梯级水电站经济调度的研究

提出采用具有附加线性约束的网络规划法，可把混联梯级水电站分解为几个子网络，简化了每个子网络的求解计算，从而加速大电网复杂的经济调度的计算速度。     

An integral theorem prover and the role of proof planning

An investigation is made into the ways proof planning can enhance the capability of a rule based prover for the theory of integration. The integrals are of the Riemann type and are defined in a way to maximize the theorem proving methods of predicate calculus. Approximately fifty theorems have been proved and several examples are discussed. A major shortcoming was found to be the inability of the system to work with or produce a proof plan. As a result, a planning scheme based on the idea of subgoals or milestones was considered. With user defined plans, there was a substantial increase in performance and capability of the system and, in some cases, proofs which were previously unsuccessful were completed.     

Planning the GMAW process by constraint propagation

Although the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process is widely used for joining metals, its planning is still a cumbersome task. The planning procedure involves many complex interrelationships among the process variables and depends heavily on empirical knowledge. Therefore, a solution method that allows a convenient way to represent the domain knowledge and evaluate the process variable relationships is needed. Further, the lack of a strong domain theory to quantify these interrelationships is a deficiency in the planning of the GMAW process. This paper presents a solution method that overcomes this deficiency and introduces a convenient knowledge representation scheme. The solution method considers the planning procedure to be a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The AC-4 algorithm is used to obtain arc consistency among nodes in the constraint network and the PC-4 algorithm is applied to obtain path consistency in the network. A modified version of the AC-4 algorithm is developed to reduce the search space and correspondingly reduce the computation time. An example is presented to demonstrate the capability of the method and its potential to reduce lead time.     

The Influence of Gravity on Trajectory Planning for Climbing Robots with Non-Rigid Legs

In this paper questions related to the occurrence of departures of a legged climbing robot from the given trajectory are considered. The basic idea of the paper is to show that, if there are slackness and non-rigidities, the legged climbing robot moving upon an inclined or vertical plane, departs systematically from the planned trajectory. It is demonstrated that these departures result from the gravity and are of systematic character. It is also shown how the inclusion of torsion effect changes substantially the nature of systematic errors arising from robot's movement along the inclined surface.