Integrating customer's preferences in the QFD planning process using a combined benchmarking and imprecise goal programming model

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a customer-oriented design tool for developing new or improved products to achieve higher customer satisfaction by integrating various functions of an organization. The engineering characteristics (ECs) affecting the product performances are designed to match the customer attributes (CAs). However, from the viewpoint of the QFD team, product design processes are performed in imprecise environments, and more than one factor must be taken into account in determining the target levels of ECs, especially the limited resources and increased market competition. This paper presents an imprecise goal programming (GP) approach to determine the optimum target levels of ECs in QFD for maximizing customer satisfaction under resource limitation and considerations of market competition. Based on benchmarking data of CAs, the concept of satisfaction functions is utilized to formulate explicitly the customer's preferences and to integrate the competitive analysis of target market into the modelling and solution process. In addition, the relationships linking CAs and ECs and the ECs to each other are integrated by functional relationships. The proposed approach will be illustrated through a car door design example.     

Limit load and shakedown analysis of plastic structures under stochastic uncertainty

Problems from plastic analysis are based on the convex, linear or linearised yield/strength condition and the linear equilibrium equation for the stress (state) vector. In practice one has to take into account stochastic variations of several model parameters. Hence, in order to get robust maximum load factors, the structural analysis problem with random parameters must be replaced by an appropriate deterministic substitute problem. A direct approach is proposed based on the primary costs for missing carrying capacity and the recourse costs (e.g. costs for repair, compensation for weakness within the structure, damage, failure, etc.). Based on the mechanical survival conditions of plasticity theory, a quadratic error/loss criterion is developed. The minimum recourse costs can be determined then by solving an optimisation problem having a quadratic objective function and linear constraints. For each vector a(·) of model parameters and each design vector x, one obtains then an explicit representation of the “best” internal load distribution F^∗. Moreover, also the expected recourse costs can be determined explicitly. Consequently, an explicit stochastic nonlinear program results for finding a robust maximal load factor μ^∗. The analytical properties and possible solution procedures are discussed.     

The maximum capture problem with heterogeneous customers

A product is sold in a geographical market and it is provided by different companies. Small unmeasurable differences exist between the products sold by different companies and customers have heterogeneous tastes. A newcomer wishes to enter the market locating p new facilities, in order to gain the maximum number of customers. It is assumed that he is not able to specify the exact behavior of every customer, so he models the consumers’ decision making by a random utility function. Under some more technical assumptions, a closed formula for the probability of patronizing a given facility is obtained. By this way, a formulation of the maximum capture problem can be obtained. The computational features of the problem are considered and two branch-and-bound methods are developed. The first method exploits the Lagrangian relaxation of the problem, the second uses the submodularity of the objective function. Data sets are generated according to different competitive scenarios and problems of up to 100 nodes are solved within a few seconds.     

Analogy and duality of texture analysis by harmonics or indicators

According to the classic harmonic approach, an orientation density function (odf)f is expanded into its corresponding Fourier orthogonal series with respect to generalized spherical harmonics, and a pole density function (pdf) into its corresponding Fourier orthogonal series with respect to spherical harmonics. While pdfs are even (antipodally symmetric) functions, odfs are generally not. Therefore, the part of the odf which cannot be determined from normal diffraction pdfs can be mathematically represented as the odd portion of its series expansion. If the odff is given, the even part can be mathematically represented explicitly in terms off itself. Thus, it is possible to render maps ofharmonic orientation ghosts, and to evaluatevariants of mathematical standard odfs resulting in identical pdfs independent of pdf data. However, if only normal diffraction pdfs are known, the data-dependentvariation width of feasible odfs remained unaccessible, and within the harmonic approach a measure of confidence in a solution of the pdf-to-odf inversion problem does not exist.According to any discrete approach, an odff defined on some setG of orientations is expanded into its corresponding Fourier orthogonal series with respect to indicator functions of the elements of a partition ofG, and a pdf defined on the upper (lower) unit hemisphereS ₊ ^{3 3} into its corresponding Fourier orthogonal series with respect to indicator functions of the elements of a partition ofS ₊ ³ . The ambiguity of the pdf-to-odf inversion problem is discussed in terms of column-rank deficiency of the augmented projection matrix. The implication of the harmonic approach to split an odf into auniquely determined and anundetermined part does no longer seem to be reasonable. However, it is possible to numerically determine data-dependent confidence intervals for the Fourier coefficients with respect to the indicator functions which can be immediately interpreted as mean orientation densities within the elements of the partition ofG. Doing so for all Fourier coefficients in the finite series expansion, i.e. for all elements of the partition of the setG, eventually results in the data-dependent variation width of odfs feasible with respect to given pdf data, and to the partitions ofG andS ₊ ³ .Thus it is confirmed that the appearance of orientation ghosts, in particular correlations oftrue andghost orientation components, depends on the representation of an odf. It may be questioned whether in practical applications the implicit assumption of the harmonic method that the even part can be determined uniquely and free of error is generally a reasonable initial condition to develop ghost correction procedures.     

SHOP: A Method For Structure‐Based Fragment and Scaffold Hopping

We present a method for fragment/scaffold substitution based on protein–ligand interactions. This concept goes beyond bioisosteric replacement, which only uses the structure of the fragment to replace as query. The methodology is validated with more than 10 biological targets relevant for drug discovery.

     

Nonlinear dynamics modeling and information processing in the brain

A review of the state of the art in dynamical neural network modeling is given. The main experimental facts that are used as the ground for dynamical models are presented. The putative role of oscillations and synchronous neural activity in information processing is discussed. Some examples of the models of feature binding, image segmentation, and selective attention are presented. The difficulties of model development and perspectives for further progress are outlined. The text was submitted by the author in English.     

Computing Green's function of the initial-boundary value problem for the wave equation in a layered cylinder

A new analytical method for the approximate computation of the time-dependent Green's function for the initial-boundary value problem of the three-dimensional wave equation on multi-layered bounded cylinder is suggested in this paper. The method is based on the derivation of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for an ordinary differential equation with piecewise constant coefficients, and an approximate computation of Green's function in the form of the Fourier series with a finite number of terms relative to the orthogonal set of the derived eigenfunctions. The computational experiment confirms the robustness of the method.     

Application of the modified Taylor approximation

In this paper we introduce and describe a new scheme for the numerical integration of smooth functions. The scheme is based on the modified Taylor expansion and is suitable for functions that exhibit near-sinusoidal or repetitive behaviour. We discuss the method and its rate of convergence, then implement it for the approximation of certain integrals. Examples include integrands involving Airy wave, Bessel, Gamma, and elliptic functions. The results, from the data in the tables, demonstrate that the method converges rapidly and approximates the integral as well as some well-known numerical integration methods used with sufficiently small step sizes.     

线性规划法在钢筋下料中的应用

应用线性规划法描述钢筋下料中的约束条件,目标函数,设计相应的优化下料方法,提高原材料的利用率。     

基于李雅普诺夫函数法的扩张状态观测器参数优化

针对ESO参数不易整定的问题,研究了扩张状态观测器(ESO)参数优化的李雅普诺夫函数法.首先建立关于误差的线性定常状态方程和误差指标函数J,在误差指标函数J中综合考虑了跟踪误差的权重和系统的稳定性以及实际运行时的饱和值限制等因素.仿真结果表明,此方法具有概念清晰,实用简便,计算量小的优点.所提ESO参数整定方法是有效的.