Search results for " OPTIMA"
showing 10 items of 220 documents
Scope Oriented Thermoeconomic analysis of energy systems. Part II: Formation Structure of Optimality for robust design
2010
This paper represents the Part II of a paper in two parts. In Part I the fundamentals of Scope Oriented Thermoeconomics have been introduced, showing a scarce potential for the cost accounting of existing plants; in this Part II the same concepts are applied to the optimization of a small set of design variables for a vapour compression chiller. The method overcomes the limit of most conventional optimization techniques, which are usually based on hermetic algorithms not enabling the energy analyst to recognize all the margins for improvement. The Scope Oriented Thermoeconomic optimization allows us to disassemble the optimization process, thus recognizing the Formation Structure of Optimal…
Discrete variable design of frames subjected to seismic actions accounting for element slenderness
2015
An optimal design problem formulation of elastic plastic frames under different combinations of fixed and seismic loads is presented. The optimal structure must behave elastically for the fixed loads, shakedown for serviceability conditions and prevent instantaneous collapse for fixed and high seismic loads. P-Delta effects and element buckling are considered. An appropriate modal technique is utilized. The design variables can have components in a continuous field or, alternatively, in chosen discrete sets or, yet, both kind of variables can be present. The design problem is formulated on the ground of a statical approach. The applications are related to steel frames.
On the Theoretical Limits of Noise-Gain-Mismatch Tradeoff in the Design of Multi-Stage Cascaded Transistor Amplifiers
2007
The problem of evaluating the limit performances of cascaded single-ended multi-stage transistor amplifiers is addressed. In particular, a theoretically rigorous approach is proposed for the determination of a family of optimal design curves (ODC's) which express the best (maximum optimal) noise-gain tradeoff that can be achieved - at each operating frequency - when a simultaneous constraint on amplifier input VSWR is accounted for.
Simple Relationships for the Optimal Design of Paired Drip Laterals on Uniform Slopes
2016
Microirrigation plants, if properly designed, allow water use efficiency to be optimized and quite high values of emission uniformity to be obtained in the field. It is known that disposing paired laterals, in which two distribution pipes extend in opposite directions from a common manifold, contribute to increasing water use efficiency. Recently, an analytical procedure has been proposed to optimally design paired drip laterals on uniform slopes under the assumption of neglect: (1) the variations of the emitters’ flow rate along the lateral, and (2) the local losses due to the emitters’ insertions. However, this procedure is not readily usable for every geometric and hydraulic characterist…
3D-2D dimensional reduction for a nonlinear optimal design problem with perimeter penalization
2012
A 3D-2D dimension reduction for a nonlinear optimal design problem with a perimeter penalization is performed in the realm of $\Gamma$-convergence, providing an integral representation for the limit functional.
Comparison between Entropy and Resilience as Indirect Measures of Reliability in the Framework of Water Distribution Network Design
2014
Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate which between the entropy and resilience indices represents a better indirect measure of reliability in the framework of water distribution network design. The methodology adopted consisted of (a) multi-objective optimizations performed in order to minimize costs and maximize reliability, expressed by means of one of the indirect indices at time; (b) retrospective performance assessment of the solutions of Pareto fronts obtained. Two case studies of different topological complexity were considered. Results showed that indices based on energetic concepts (resilience and modified resilience) represent a better compact estimate of reliability th…
On the Post-Elastic Behavior of LRPH Connections
2019
The paper concerns the study of the post-elastic behavior of a recently proposed innovative device, named Limited Resistance Rigid Perfectly Plastic Hinge (LRPH). In particular, LRPH is a steel device of finite length realizing a moment connection between beam elements of a steel frame; it is designed in order to possess two main and independent requirements: its bending moment resistance must be suitably lower than the one of the connected beam element and its overall bending stiffness must be equal to that of the connected beam element characterized by the same length. In order to make the proposed device reliable, LRPH must be capable of realizing a full plastic hinge for the assigned be…
Guaranteed lower bounds for cost functionals of time-periodic parabolic optimization problems
2019
In this paper, a new technique is shown for deriving computable, guaranteed lower bounds of functional type (minorants) for two different cost functionals subject to a parabolic time-periodic boundary value problem. Together with previous results on upper bounds (majorants) for one of the cost functionals, both minorants and majorants lead to two-sided estimates of functional type for the optimal control problem. Both upper and lower bounds are derived for the second new cost functional subject to the same parabolic PDE-constraints, but where the target is a desired gradient. The time-periodic optimal control problems are discretized by the multiharmonic finite element method leading to lar…
The economics of extortion: Theory and the case of the Sicilian Mafia
2023
This paper studies extortion of firms operating in legal sectors by a profit-maximizing criminal organization. We develop a simple taxation model under asymmetric information to find the Mafia optimal extortion as a function of firms’ observable characteristics, namely size and sector. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where the Sicilian Mafia, one of the most ancient criminal organizations, operates. In line with our theoretical model, our empirical findings show that extortion is strongly concave with respect to firm size and highly regressive. The percentage of profits appropriated by the Mafia ranges from 40% for small fi…
ANOVA-MOP: ANOVA Decomposition for Multiobjective Optimization
2018
Real-world optimization problems may involve a number of computationally expensive functions with a large number of input variables. Metamodel-based optimization methods can reduce the computational costs of evaluating expensive functions, but this does not reduce the dimension of the search domain nor mitigate the curse of dimensionality effects. The dimension of the search domain can be reduced by functional anova decomposition involving Sobol' sensitivity indices. This approach allows one to rank decision variables according to their impact on the objective function values. On the basis of the sparsity of effects principle, typically only a small number of decision variables significantl…