A highway in state space for reactors with minimum entropy production

Thousands of numerical solutions of an optimal control problem for plug flow reactors were found to give, what we call a “highway in the reactors’ state space”. The problem was to find the heat transfer strategy which minimise the entropy production in reactors with fixed chemical conversion. The control variable was always the temperature of the heating/cooling medium along the reactor. The highway represents the most energy efficient way to travel far in state space. Such highways were studied for five reactor systems, endothermic and exothermic ones. Numerical analysis showed that the reactor highway is characterised by approximately constant thermodynamic driving forces/local entropy production for reasonable process intensities. Each solution represents a compromise between the entropy production of reactions, heat transfer and frictional flow (pressure drop). The solutions enter and leave the highway at different positions depending on how far from the highway their initial and final destinations are. Knowledge about the nature of the highway, e.g. when the reactor operates in a reaction mode or a heat transfer mode, may be important for energy efficient reactor design. The theoretical formulation of the optimisation problem is valid for plug flow as well as batch reactors. We showed that important results in literature like the Spirkl-Ries quantity, the theorems of equipartition of entropy production and equipartition of forces are contained in our general formulation. The numerical results showed that the analytical results are good approximations to the optimum also in problems where they do not apply in a strictly mathematical sense.     

基于改进遗传算法的QoS移动网格任务调度

移动网格环境具有高度的动态性,任意时刻都可能发生资源的变化,任务调度因此变得复杂,提出了一种面向服务质量(QoS)的移动网格任务调度策略.建立资源和任务模型,定义任务优先级,将任务分成若干子集,子集内调度采用改进遗传算法,选取时延和跨度为QoS指标,编码和遗传操作上体现资源对任务QoS的匹配调度,使最优解尽力满足任务QoS;同一资源上分配的任务,按优先级顺序执行.仿真结果表明,调度算法可以较好地满足用户的QoS,调度跨度也较优.     

Online algorithms for scheduling two parallel machines with a single server

We consider an online scheduling problem on two identical parallel machines with a single server. Jobs arrive one by one and each job has to be loaded by the server before being processed on one of the machines, and unloaded immediately by the server after its processing. Both loading and unloading times are equal to one time unit. The goal is to minimize the makespan. For the variant of the problem involving both loading and unloading operations, we present an online algorithm with competitive ratio of 5/3. For the variant with loading operation only, we show that the competitive ratio of list scheduling is at least 8/5 and provide an improved online algorithm with competitive ratio of 11/7. Finally, we discuss the lower bounds for these problems. We show that both variants have a lower bound of 3/2. Furthermore, we show that the lower bound of the first variant is at least 8/5 if the online algorithm satisfies a certain constraint.     

网格环境下的静态启发式任务调度算法

针对网格环境中应用程序常为复杂的计算密集型的并行分布式应用程序,提出了一个新的基于复制和插入的启发式任务调度算法(duplication-and-insertion-based scheduling,DIBS),可以同时执行多个应用程序,利用决定路径对任务进行排序,缩短了应用程序总的执行时间,该算法还平衡了处理器间的负载.实验结果表明,该算法更加符合网格的复杂环境,能够更好地满足不同用户的实际需要.     

Scheduling with agreements: new results

In this paper, the problem of scheduling with agreements (SWA) is considered. In scheduling, this consists of a set of jobs non-preemptively on identical machines subject to constraints that only some specific jobs can be scheduled concurrently on different machines. These constraints are given by an agreement graph and the aim is to minimise the makespan. In the case of two machines we extend two NP-hardness results of SWA with processing times at most three that hold for bipartite agreement graphs to more general agreement graphs. Complexity results of SWA are established in the case of split and complement of bipartite graphs. We also present some approximation results for SWA.     

基于几何流形能量最小化的图像检索算法

提出了一种基于几何流形能量GEOMEN(geometric manifold energy)最小化的图像检索算法。许多基于流形的检索算法都是在图像的特征空间提取相应的语义流形空间,进而在语义空间中进行图像检索排序。将图像的检索看作一个图像数据库中搜索一个最优图像能量环的问题。图像能量环表示了图像之间的联系和相关性,通过最小化GEOMEN可以得到最优图像环。最小化的求解涉及到一个组合优化的问题,传统的禁忌搜索算法在选择最优候选集时非常耗时,提出一种智能的积极禁忌搜索算法求解最优环,实验表明提出的算法检索性能高,可以得到较高的查全率与准确率。     

瓶颈指向的启发式算法求解混合流水车间调度问题

针对以最小化时间表长为目标的复杂混合流水车间调度问题,提出了一种将机器布局和工件加工时间特征紧密结合的启发式算法.首先,充分利用各阶段平均机器负荷一般不相等的特点确定瓶颈阶段,构建初始工件排序.其次,针对在瓶颈阶段前加工时间较短而瓶颈阶段后加工时间相对较长的工件,在第1阶段优先开始加工.同时,在瓶颈阶段前的每一个阶段,每当有工件等待加工或同时完工时,优先选择瓶颈阶段前剩余加工时间最短的工件加工;在瓶颈阶段以及瓶颈阶段之后,则优先选择这台机器后剩余加工时间最长的工件加工.最后,采用工件交换和插入操作改进初始调度.用Carlier和Neron的Benchmark算例测试提出的启发式算法.将计算结果与NEH启发式算法进行了比较,平均偏差降低了0.0555%,表明这个启发式算法是有效的.     

求解车间调度问题的2阶段混合粒子群优化算法

针对车间调度问题,提出了一种2阶段混合粒了群算法(TS-HPSO).该算法在第1阶段为每个粒子设置较大的惯性系数w,同时去掉了粒子的社会学习能力,从而保证每个微粒在局部范围内充分搜索.第2阶段的混合粒子群算法以第1阶段每个粒子找到的最好解作为初始解,同时以遗传算法中的变异操作保证粒了多样性;为保证算法的寻优能力,对全局gbest进行贪婪邻域搜索.计算结果证明了本算法的有效性.     

A branch and bound algorithm for scheduling problem of a robot‐centered manufacturing cell

Abstract

An alternative formulation of the scheduling problem in a robot‐centered manufacturing cell has been described here, which was originally formulated by Lin et al. [7] as a mixed integer programming problem. An efficient procedure based on the branch and bound technique has been proposed. In order to reduce the complexity of the branching procedure, several sequencing rules [4] have been imbedded into the proposed procedure and an integrated algorithm has then been presented. The computational results have indicated the proposed algorithm to be efficient. Finally, conclusions and some suggestions are given.     

Block spatial scheduling modelling and application in shipbuilding

With the wide application of module-shipbuilding technology, problems related to block spatial scheduling occur in various working areas, and this restricts the productivity of shipbuilding. To address the problems and to obtain the optimum block sequence and spatial layout, typical block features and work plates were investigated. A heuristic spatial scheduling model was established based on the investigation and proposed strategies with the objective to minimise makespan. With the heuristic algorithm, a block spatial scheduling system was developed and implemented with real data from a large ship. Through the spatial scheduling system, visual results of daily block layouts and progress charts for all blocks can be easily obtained and work orders can also be created for site workers. Several other spatial scheduling methods are described and compared with the above-mentioned heuristic algorithm. The result shows that the heuristic algorithm is better than Cplex and a genetic algorithm in solving large-scale block scheduling, and the heuristic algorithm is better than a grid algorithm and manual scheduling in all aspects such as makespan, utilisation of work plates, runtime of scheduling and on-time delivery. The developed block spatial scheduling system is applied in a block production shop of a modern shipyard and shows good performance.