A two stage heuristic algorithm for the integrated aircraft and crew schedule recovery problems

Airline disruptions incurred huge cost for airlines and serious inconvenience for travelers. In this paper, we study the integrated aircraft and crew schedule recovery problem. A two stage heuristic algorithm for the integrated recovery problem is proposed. In the first stage, the integrated aircraft recovery and flight-rescheduling model with partial crew consideration is built. This model is based on the traditional multi-commodity network model for the aircraft schedule recovery problem. The objective of this model also includes minimization of the original crew connection disruption. In the second stage, the integrated crew schedule recovery and flight re-scheduling model with partial aircraft consideration is built. We proposed a new multi-commodity model for the crew schedule recovery. The main advantage of such model is that it is much more efficient to integrate the flight-scheduling and aircraft consideration. New constraints are incorporated to guarantee that the aircraft connections generated in the stage 1 are still feasible. Two stages are run iteratively until no improvement can be achieved. Experimental results show that our method can provide better recovery solutions compared with the benchmark algorithms.     

Compensation paradox: the influence of monetary rewards on user behaviour

Many e-commerce companies collect users’ personal data for marketing purposes despite privacy concerns. Information-collecting companies often offer a monetary reward to users to alleviate privacy concerns and ease the collection of personal information. This study focused on the negative effects of monetary rewards on both information privacy concerns (IPC) and information disclosure. A survey approach was used to collect data and 370 final responses were analysed using a two-way analysis of variance and a binomial logistic regression model. The results show that monetary rewards increase IPC when an information-collecting company requires sensitive information. Additional results indicate that building trust is a more effective way of collecting personal data. This study identifies how organisations can best execute information-collection activities and contributes additional insights for academia and practitioners.     

Optimal filtering and control for wireless networked closed-loop control systems

This article studies the optimal filtering and control for wireless networked control systems (WNCSs). In WNCSs, packets may be lost in both control and feedback channels and user datagram protocol is usually used to improve the performance of the real-time control. Relevant literature indicates that the conventional optimal filtering for such a system cannot be applied in practice due to the complex calculation with Gaussian mixtures. This paper proposes a novel scheme to realize the optimal filtering and the linear quadratic Gaussian control for WNCSs, in which the controlled node performs a local estimation and the remote-control node performs the final estimation and control, and a synchronization of two estimators is guaranteed by a communication mechanism. An optimal filtering algorithm is developed, the stability condition of the filtering error covariance is obtained, optimal finite-horizon and infinite-horizon control are derived, and the stability of the closed-loop control system is proved. Numerical simulations show the validity and feasibility of the theoretical results.     

Covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy based design of fixed structure robust H∞ loop shaping controller

This paper proposes the application of Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) in fixed structure H_∞ loop shaping controller design. Integral Time Absolute Error (ITAE) performance requirement is incorporated as a constraint with an objective of maximization of stability margin in the fixed structure H_∞ loop shaping controller design problem. Pneumatic servo system, separating tower process and F18 fighter aircraft system are considered as test systems. The CMA-ES designed fixed structure H_∞ loop-shaping controller is compared with the traditional H_∞ loop shaping controller, non-smooth optimization and Heuristic Kalman Algorithm (HKA) based fixed structure H_∞ loop shaping controllers in terms of stability margin. 20% perturbation in the nominal plant is used to validate the robustness of the CMA-ES designed H_∞ loop shaping controller. The effect of Finite Word Length (FWL) is considered to show the implementation difficulties of controller in digital processors. Simulation results demonstrated that CMA-ES based fixed structure H_∞ loop shaping controller is suitable for real time implementation with good robust stability and performance.     

基于灾度辨识的钢闸门巡视检查研究

巡视检查是对钢闸门要点部位开展定期、定点的信息收集,并对警兆信息做出快速辨识和评估的重要内容。应用灾度辨识的警兆信息评估方法,综合钢闸门巡视检查的各类要素信息,明确工程最大隶属的灾度等级(Ⅰ～Ⅴ级),可作为工程日常巡视检查决策的重要软技术手段。     

How do different warning signs compare with the guideline daily amount and traffic-light system?

Nutritional warnings are rapidly gaining relevance, particularly in the region of the Americas, as a front-of-package nutrition labelling scheme that facilitate the identification of products with high content of nutrients associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Several graphic designs are being developed as countries discuss the implementation of nutritional warnings, which makes it necessary to develop research to evaluate their efficacy. In this context, the aim of the present work was to compare the efficacy of a series of nutritional warnings that are being considered by Brazilian national authorities for the country with two of the most studied schemes: the guidelines daily amounts (GDA) and the traffic light system. Two studies were conducted. In the first one, visual search was conducted with 62 participants to evaluate the time needed by them to identify the schemes on food labels and to identify whether a product had high nutrient content. In the second study, an online survey with 1932 participants was used to evaluate their ability to use FOP nutrition labelling schemes to correctly identify the most healthful product in a set, as well as high nutrient content in a product. In addition, the influence of FOP nutrition labelling schemes on perceived healthfulness was evaluated. Finally, consumers’ perception of the schemes was gathered using an open-ended question. Results confirmed the advantages of nutritional warnings compared to the GDA and the traffic-light system to facilitate the identification of products with high content of nutrients associated with NCDs. In addition, the use of familiar signs frequently used to convey a ‘warning message’ outperformed other unfamiliar signs in terms of their ability to facilitate the interpretation of nutrition information. Regarding colour, black signs tended to required significantly less time to be detected when included on colour food labels compared to red signs.     

基于特征融合的中文简历解析方法研究

针对基于规则和统计的传统中文简历解析方法效率低、成本高、泛化能力差的缺点，提出一种基于特征融合的中文简历解析方法，即级联Word2Vec生成的词向量和用BLSTM（Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory）建模字序列生成的词向量，然后再结合BLSTM和CRF（Conditional Random Fields）对中文简历进行解析（BLSTM-CRF）。为了提高中文简历解析的效率，级联包含字序列信息的词向量和用Word2Vec生成的词向量，融合成一个新的词向量表示；再由BLSTM强大的学习能力融合词的上下文信息，输出所有可能标签序列的分值给CRF层；再由CRF引入标签之间约束关系求解最优序列。利用梯度下降算法训练神经网络，使用预先训练的词向量和Dropout优化神经网络，最终完成对中文简历的解析工作。实验结果表明，所提的特征融合方法优于传统的简历解析方法。     

A multi-start central force optimization for global optimization

Central force optimization (CFO) is an efficient and powerful population-based intelligence algorithm for optimization problems. CFO is deterministic in nature, unlike the most widely used metaheuristics. CFO, however, is not completely free from the problems of premature convergence. One way to overcome local optimality is to utilize the multi-start strategy. By combining the respective advantages of CFO and the multi-start strategy, a multi-start central force optimization (MCFO) algorithm is proposed in this paper. The performance of the MCFO approach is evaluated on a comprehensive set of benchmark functions. The experimental results demonstrate that MCFO not only saves the computational cost, but also performs better than some state-of-the-art CFO algorithms. MCFO is also compared with representative evolutionary algorithms. The results show that MCFO is highly competitive, achieving promising performance.     

关于信息化测绘时代工程测量发展的思考

如今我国信息化技术全面发展，尤其对于工程测量工作领域来讲，不管是在工程建设和管理方面都产生不小的支撑引导效用。由此，笔者具体结合如今工程建设信息化测绘核心任何以及设备布置细节，进行结构整体安全管理周期和周边地理空间信息技术发展能效整理解析，试图将工程测量最新发展机遇和技术挑战问题处理完全。希望能够借此为日后一定时期范围内相关工程测量规划主体提供合理指导性建议内容，最终为我国各类工程事业可持续发展前景绽放奠定深刻适应基础。