Search results for "Operations Research"
showing 10 items of 1297 documents
General mathematical concept of compensation in sports science with quantitative analysis in the case of sprinting performance
1995
In many of the known sports disciplines, especially in athletics, the criterion which determines the positions of the competitors is a simple physical value, mostly a time or a distance, and the athlete with the minimum or maximum, respectively, takes the first place. Moreover, sports science explains this criterion by a set of the so-called basic abilities. Compensation means the balance of the inferiority of such a basic ability by the superiority of another one. In the following paper, a general abstract concept to analyse compensation in a quantitative way is presented first. It can be applied to any discipline with a measurable criterion, if, in addition, the performance can be describ…
GRASP and path relinking for the max–min diversity problem
2010
The max-min diversity problem (MMDP) consists in selecting a subset of elements from a given set in such a way that the diversity among the selected elements is maximized. The problem is NP-hard and can be formulated as an integer linear program. Since the 1980s, several solution methods for this problem have been developed and applied to a variety of fields, particularly in the social and biological sciences. We propose a heuristic method-based on the GRASP and path relinking methodologies-for finding approximate solutions to this optimization problem. We explore different ways to hybridize GRASP and path relinking, including the recently proposed variant known as GRASP with evolutionary p…
A comparison of different solution approaches to the vehicle scheduling problem in a practical case
2000
Abstract The Vehicle Scheduling Problem (VSP) consists in assigning a set of scheduled trips to a set of vehicles, satisfying a set of constraints and optimizing an objective function. A wide literature exists for the VSP, but usually not all the practical requirements of the real cases are taken into account. In the present paper a practical case is studied, and for it a traditional method is tailored and two innovative heuristics are developed. As the problem presents a multicriteria nature, each of the three algorithms adopts a different approach to multicriteria optimization. Scalarization of the different criteria is performed by the traditional algorithm. A lexicographic approach is f…
Hybridizing the cross-entropy method: An application to the max-cut problem
2009
Cross-entropy has been recently proposed as a heuristic method for solving combinatorial optimization problems. We briefly review this methodology and then suggest a hybrid version with the goal of improving its performance. In the context of the well-known max-cut problem, we compare an implementation of the original cross-entropy method with our proposed version. The suggested changes are not particular to the max-cut problem and could be considered for future applications to other combinatorial optimization problems.
Using a TSP heuristic for routing order pickers in warehouses
2010
In this paper, we deal with the sequencing and routing problem of order pickers in conventional multi-parallel-aisle warehouse systems. For this NP-hard Steiner travelling salesman problem (TSP), exact algorithms only exist for warehouses with at most three cross aisles, while for other warehouse types literature provides a selection of dedicated construction heuristics. We evaluate to what extent reformulating and solving the problem as a classical TSP leads to performance improvements compared to existing dedicated heuristics. We report average savings in route distance of up to 47% when using the LKH (Lin-Kernighan-Helsgaun) TSP heuristic. Additionally, we examine if combining problem-sp…
Construction and optimality of a special class of balanced designs
2006
The use of balanced designs is generally advisable in experimental practice. In technological experiments, balanced designs optimize the exploitation of experimental resources, whereas in marketing research experiments they avoid erroneous conclusions caused by the misinterpretation of interviewed customers. In general, the balancing property assures the minimum variance of first-order effect estimates. In this work the authors consider situations in which all factors are categorical and minimum run size is required. In a symmetrical case, it is often possible to find an economical balanced design by means of algebraic methods. Conversely, in an asymmetrical case algebraic methods lead to e…
Applying fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization to Multi-unit Double Auctions
2010
Abstract In the context of Quadratic Programming Problems, we use a fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to analyze a Multi-unit Double Auction (MDA) market. We give also a Linear Programming (LP) based upper bound to help the decision maker in dealing with constraints in the mathematical model. In the computational study, we evaluate our algorithm and show that it is a feasible approach for processing bids and calculating assignments.
The multiple vehicle pickup and delivery problem with LIFO constraints
2015
Abstract This paper approaches a pickup and delivery problem with multiple vehicles in which LIFO conditions are imposed when performing loading and unloading operations and the route durations cannot exceed a given limit. We propose two mixed integer formulations of this problem and a heuristic procedure that uses tabu search in a multi-start framework. The first formulation is a compact one, that is, the number of variables and constraints is polynomial in the number of requests, while the second one contains an exponential number of constraints and is used as the basis of a branch-and-cut algorithm. The performances of the proposed solution methods are evaluated through an extensive comp…
A Conditional Value–at–Risk Model for Insurance Products with Guarantee
2009
We propose a model to select the optimal portfolio which underlies insurance policies with a guarantee. The objective function is defined in order to minimise the conditional value at-risk (CVaR) of the distribution of the losses with respect to a target return. We add operational and regulatory constraints to make the model as flexible as possible when used for real applications. We show that the integration of the asset and liability side yields superior performances with respect to naive fixed-mix portfolios and asset based strategies. We validate the model on out-of-sample scenarios and provide insights on policy design.
Sufficient conditions for coincidence in ℓ1 multifacility location problems
1997
We consider the problem of finding the optimal way of locating a finite number of facilities in a finite dimensional space, in order to minimize a weighted sum of the distances between these and other pre-existent facilities which are already positioned. We study the specific case where distance is measured in the @?"1, giving a new sufficient condition for identifying groups of facilities whose position will coincide at optimality.