Novel operating theatre scheduling method based on estimation of distribution algorithm

In order to improve the efficiency of operating rooms,reduce the costs for hospitals and improve the level of service qualities, a scheduling method was developed based on an estimation of distribution algorithm（ EDA）. First, a scheduling problem domain is described. Based on assignment constraints and resource capacity constraints, the mathematical programming models are set up with an objective function to minimize the system makespan. On the basis of the descriptions mentioned above, a solution policy of generating feasible scheduling solutions is established. Combined with the specific constraints of operating theatres, the EDA-based algorithm is put forward to solve scheduling problems. Finally, simulation experiments are designed to evaluate the scheduling method. The orthogonal table is chosen to determine the parameters in the proposed method. Then the genetic algorithm and the particle swarm optimization algorithm are chosen for comparison with the EDA-based algorithm, and the results indicate that the proposed method can decrease the makespan of the surgical system regardless of the size of operations. Moreover, the computation time of the EDA-based algorithm is only approximately 5 s when solving the large scale problems, which means that the proposed algorithm is suitable for carrying out an on-line scheduling optimization of the patients.

Robust Airfoil Optimization with Multi-objective Estimation of Distribution Algorithm

A transonic airfoil designed by means of classical point-optimization may result in its dramatically inferior performance under off-design conditions. To overcome this shortcoming, robust design is proposed to find out the optimal profile of an airfoil to maintain its performance in an uncertain environment. The robust airfoil optimization is aimed to minimize mean values and variances of drag coefficients while satisfying the lift and thickness constraints over a range of Mach numbers. A multi-objective estimation of distribution algorithm is applied to the robust airfoil optimization on the base of the RAE2822 benchmark airfoil. The shape of the airfoil is obtained through superposing ten Hick-Henne shape functions upon the benchmark airfoil. A set of design points is selected according to a uniform design table for aerodynamic evaluation. A Kriging model of drag coefficient is constructed with those points to reduce computing costs. Over the Mach range from 0.7 to 0.8, the airfoil generated by the robust optimization has a configuration characterized by supercritical airfoil with low drag coefficients. The small fluctuation in its drag coefficients means that the performance of the robust airfoil is insensitive to variation of Mach number.

Distributed Optimal Variational GNE Seeking in Merely Monotone Games

In this paper, the optimal variational generalized Nash equilibrium(v-GNE) seeking problem in merely monotone games with linearly coupled cost functions is investigated, in which the feasible strategy domain of each agent is coupled through an affine constraint. A distributed algorithm based on the hybrid steepest descent method is first proposed to seek the optimal v-GNE. Then, an accelerated algorithm with relaxation is proposed and analyzed, which has the potential to further improve the convergence speed to the optimal v-GNE. Some sufficient conditions in both algorithms are obtained to ensure the global convergence towards the optimal v-GNE. To illustrate the performance of the algorithms, numerical simulation is conducted based on a networked Nash-Cournot game with bounded market capacities.

Distributed collaborative complete coverage path planning based on hybrid strategy

Collaborative coverage path planning(CCPP) refers to obtaining the shortest paths passing over all places except obstacles in a certain area or space. A multi-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) collaborative CCPP algorithm is proposed for the urban rescue search or military search in outdoor environment.Due to flexible control of small UAVs, it can be considered that all UAVs fly at the same altitude, that is, they perform search tasks on a two-dimensional plane. Based on the agents’ motion characteristics and environmental information, a mathematical model of CCPP problem is established. The minimum time for UAVs to complete the CCPP is the objective function, and complete coverage constraint, no-fly constraint, collision avoidance constraint, and communication constraint are considered. Four motion strategies and two communication strategies are designed. Then a distributed CCPP algorithm is designed based on hybrid strategies. Simulation results compared with patternbased genetic algorithm(PBGA) and random search method show that the proposed method has stronger real-time performance and better scalability and can complete the complete CCPP task more efficiently and stably.

Energy Economic Dispatch for Photovoltaic-Storage via Distributed Event-Triggered Surplus Algorithm

This paper presents a novel approach to economic dispatch in smart grids equipped with diverse energy devices.This method integrates features including photovoltaic(PV)systems,energy storage coupling,varied energy roles,and energy supply and demand dynamics.The systemmodel is developed by considering energy devices as versatile units capable of fulfilling various functionalities and playing multiple roles simultaneously.To strike a balance between optimality and feasibility,renewable energy resources are modeled with considerations for forecasting errors,Gaussian distribution,and penalty factors.Furthermore,this study introduces a distributed event-triggered surplus algorithm designed to address the economic dispatch problem by minimizing production costs.Rooted in surplus theory and finite time projection,the algorithm effectively rectifies network imbalances caused by directed graphs and addresses local inequality constraints.The algorithm greatly reduces the communication burden through event triggering mechanism.Finally,both theoretical proofs and numerical simulations verify the convergence and event-triggered nature of the algorithm.

Optimization by Estimation of Distribution with DEUM Framework Based on Markov Random Fields

This paper presents a Markov random field （MRP） approach to estimating and sampling the probability distribution in populations of solutions. The approach is used to define a class of algorithms under the general heading distribution estimation using Markov random fields （DEUM）. DEUM is a subclass of estimation of distribution algorithms （EDAs） where interaction between solution variables is represented as an undirected graph and the joint probability of a solution is factorized as a Gibbs distribution derived from the structure of the graph. The focus of this paper will be on describing the three main characteristics of DEUM framework, which distinguishes it from the traditional EDA. They are： 1） use of MRF models, 2） fitness modeling approach to estimating the parameter of the model and 3） Monte Carlo approach to sampling from the model.

An improved estimation of distribution algorithm for multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem

The multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem(EVRP)with soft time window and multiple charging types(MCEVRP-STW&MCT)is studied,in which electric multi-compartment vehicles that are environmentally friendly but need to be recharged in course of transport process,are employed.A mathematical model for this optimization problem is established with the objective of minimizing the function composed of vehicle cost,distribution cost,time window penalty cost and charging service cost.To solve the problem,an estimation of the distribution algorithm based on Lévy flight(EDA-LF)is proposed to perform a local search at each iteration to prevent the algorithm from falling into local optimum.Experimental results demonstrate that the EDA-LF algorithm can find better solutions and has stronger robustness than the basic EDA algorithm.In addition,when comparing with existing algorithms,the result shows that the EDA-LF can often get better solutions in a relatively short time when solving medium and large-scale instances.Further experiments show that using electric multi-compartment vehicles to deliver incompatible products can produce better results than using traditional fuel vehicles.

Archimedean copula estimation of distribution algorithm based on artificial bee colony algorithm

The artificial bee colony （ABC） algorithm is a com- petitive stochastic population-based optimization algorithm. How- ever, the ABC algorithm does not use the social information and lacks the knowledge of the problem structure, which leads to in- sufficiency in both convergent speed and searching precision. Archimedean copula estimation of distribution algorithm （ACEDA） is a relatively simple, time-economic and multivariate correlated EDA. This paper proposes a novel hybrid algorithm based on the ABC algorithm and ACEDA called Archimedean copula estima- tion of distribution based on the artificial bee colony （ACABC） algorithm. The hybrid algorithm utilizes ACEDA to estimate the distribution model and then uses the information to help artificial bees to search more efficiently in the search space. Six bench- mark functions are introduced to assess the performance of the ACABC algorithm on numerical function optimization. Experimen- tal results show that the ACABC algorithm converges much faster with greater precision compared with the ABC algorithm, ACEDA and the global best （gbest）-guided ABC （GABC） algorithm in most of the experiments.

Combinations of Estimation of Distribution Algorithms and Other Techniques

This paper summaries our recent work on combining estimation of distribution algorithms （EDA） and other techniques for solving hard search and optimization problems： a） guided mutation, an offspring generator in which the ideas from EDAs and genetic algorithms are combined together, we have shown that an evolutionary algorithm with guided mutation outperforms the best GA for the maximum clique problem, b） evolutionary algorithms refining a heuristic, we advocate a strategy for solving a hard optimization problem with complicated data structure, and c） combination of two different local search techniques and EDA for numerical global optimization problems, its basic idea is that not all the new generated points are needed to be improved by an expensive local search.

A novel hybrid estimation of distribution algorithm for solving hybrid flowshop scheduling problem with unrelated parallel machine

The hybrid flow shop scheduling problem with unrelated parallel machine is a typical NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem, and it exists widely in chemical, manufacturing and pharmaceutical industry. In this work, a novel mathematic model for the hybrid flow shop scheduling problem with unrelated parallel machine(HFSPUPM) was proposed. Additionally, an effective hybrid estimation of distribution algorithm was proposed to solve the HFSPUPM, taking advantage of the features in the mathematic model. In the optimization algorithm, a new individual representation method was adopted. The(EDA) structure was used for global search while the teaching learning based optimization(TLBO) strategy was used for local search. Based on the structure of the HFSPUPM, this work presents a series of discrete operations. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid algorithm compared with other algorithms.

Gaussian process assisted coevolutionary estimation of distribution algorithm for computationally expensive problems

In order to reduce the computation of complex problems, a new surrogate-assisted estimation of distribution algorithm with Gaussian process was proposed. Coevolution was used in dual populations which evolved in parallel. The search space was projected into multiple subspaces and searched by sub-populations. Also, the whole space was exploited by the other population which exchanges information with the sub-populations. In order to make the evolutionary course efficient, multivariate Gaussian model and Gaussian mixture model were used in both populations separately to estimate the distribution of individuals and reproduce new generations. For the surrogate model, Gaussian process was combined with the algorithm which predicted variance of the predictions. The results on six benchmark functions show that the new algorithm performs better than other surrogate-model based algorithms and the computation complexity is only 10% of the original estimation of distribution algorithm.

Multi-objective planning model for simultaneous reconfiguration of power distribution network and allocation of renewable energy resources and capacitors with considering uncertainties

This research develops a comprehensive method to solve a combinatorial problem consisting of distribution system reconfiguration, capacitor allocation, and renewable energy resources sizing and siting simultaneously and to improve power system's accountability and system performance parameters. Due to finding solution which is closer to realistic characteristics, load forecasting, market price errors and the uncertainties related to the variable output power of wind based DG units are put in consideration. This work employs NSGA-II accompanied by the fuzzy set theory to solve the aforementioned multi-objective problem. The proposed scheme finally leads to a solution with a minimum voltage deviation, a maximum voltage stability, lower amount of pollutant and lower cost. The cost includes the installation costs of new equipment, reconfiguration costs, power loss cost, reliability cost, cost of energy purchased from power market, upgrade costs of lines and operation and maintenance costs of DGs. Therefore, the proposed methodology improves power quality, reliability and security in lower costs besides its preserve, with the operational indices of power distribution networks in acceptable level. To validate the proposed methodology's usefulness, it was applied on the IEEE 33-bus distribution system then the outcomes were compared with initial configuration.

An effective estimation of distribution algorithm for parallel litho machine scheduling with reticle constraints

In order to improve the scheduling efficiency of photolithography,bottleneck process of wafer fabrications in the semiconductor industry,an effective estimation of distribution algorithm is proposed for scheduling problems of parallel litho machines with reticle constraints,where multiple reticles are available for each reticle type.First,the scheduling problem domain of parallel litho machines is described with reticle constraints and mathematical programming formulations are put forward with the objective of minimizing total weighted completion time.Second,estimation of distribution algorithm is developed with a decoding scheme specially designed to deal with the reticle constraints.Third,an insert-based local search with the first move strategy is introduced to enhance the local exploitation ability of the algorithm.Finally,simulation experiments and analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Microcontroller Design Based on Dynamic Heterogeneous Redundancy Architecture

Redundancy control can effectively enhance the stability and robustness of a system.Based on the conventional redundancy control switchover and majority arbitration strategy,this paper introduces the concept of heterogeneity and dynamics,constructs a dynamic heterogeneous redundancy-based microcontroller architecture DHR-MCU,and designs a fixed-leader distributed consensus algorithm that satisfies the program running state control of this architecture.The theoretical analysis and actual measurement of the prototype system prove that this architecture has good anti-attack and self-recovery capabilities under normal functions and performances and meets the general robust features in terms of safety and security.

Joint computation offloading and resource allocation in vehicular edge computing networks

Vehicular Edge Computing(VEC)is a promising technique to accommodate the computation-intensive and delaysensitive tasks through offloading the tasks to the RoadSide-Unit(RSU)equipped with edge computing servers or neighboring vehicles.Nevertheless,the limited computation resources of edge computing servers and the mobility of vehicles make the offloading policy design very challenging.In this context,through considering the potential transmission gains brought by the mobility of vehicles,we propose an efficient computation offloading and resource allocation scheme in VEC networks with two kinds of offloading modes,i.e.,Vehicle to Vehicle(V2V)and Vehicle to RSU(V2R).We define a new cost function for vehicular users by incorporating the vehicles’offloading delay,energy consumption,and expenses with a differentiated pricing strategy,as well as the transmission gain.An optimization problem is formulated to minimize the average cost of all the task vehicles under the latency and computation capacity constraints.A distributed iterative algorithm is proposed by decoupling the problem into two subproblems for the offloading mode selection and the resource allocation.Matching theorybased and Lagrangian-based algorithms are proposed to solve the two subproblems,respectively.Simulation results show the proposed algorithm achieves low complexity and significantly improves the system performance compared with three benchmark schemes.

Fast and scalable routing protocols for data center networks

Data center networks may comprise tens or hundreds of thousands of nodes,and,naturally,suffer from frequent software and hardware failures as well as link congestions.Packets are routed along the shortest paths with sufficient resources to facilitate efficient network utilization and minimize delays.In such dynamic networks,links frequently fail or get congested,making the recalculation of the shortest paths a computationally intensive problem.Various routing protocols were proposed to overcome this problem by focusing on network utilization rather than speed.Surprisingly,the design of fast shortest-path algorithms for data centers was largely neglected,though they are universal components of routing protocols.Moreover,parallelization techniques were mostly deployed for random network topologies,and not for regular topologies that are often found in data centers.The aim of this paper is to improve scalability and reduce the time required for the shortest-path calculation in data center networks by parallelization on general-purpose hardware.We propose a novel algorithm that parallelizes edge relaxations as a faster and more scalable solution for popular data center topologies.

Distributed computations for large-scale networked systems using belief propagation

This paper introduces several related distributed algorithms,generalised from the celebrated belief propagation algorithm for statistical learning.These algorithms are suitable for a class of computational problems in largescale networked systems,ranging from average consensus,sensor fusion,distributed estimation,distributed optimisation,distributed control,and distributed learning.By expressing the underlying computational problem as a sparse linear system,each algorithm operates at each node of the network graph and computes iteratively the desired solution.The behaviours of these algorithms are discussed in terms of the network graph topology and parameters of the corresponding computational problem.A number of examples are presented to illustrate their applications.Also introduced is a message-passing algorithm for distributed convex optimisation.

2-D distributed pose estimation of multi-agent systems using bearing measurements

This article studies distributed pose(orientation and position)estimation of leader–follower multi-agent systems over𝜅-layer graphs in 2-D plane.Only the leaders have access to their orientations and positions,while the followers can measure the relative bearings or(angular and linear)velocities in their unknown local coordinate frames.For the orientation estimation,the local relative bearings are used to obtain the relative orientations among the agents,based on which a distributed orientation estimation algorithm is proposed for each follower to estimate its orientation.For the position estimation,the local relative bearings are used to obtain the position constraints among the agents,and a distributed position estimation algorithm is proposed for each follower to estimate its position by solving its position constraints.Both the orientation and position estimation errors converge to zero asymptotically.A simulation example is given to verify the theoretical results.

ASIC Design of DA-Based 2-D Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform

Aim To present an ASIC design of DA based 2 D IDCT. Methods\ In the design of 1 D IDCT is utilized a Chen based fast IDCT algorithm, and multiplier accumulators based on distributed algorithm contributes in reducing the hardware amount and in enhancing the speed performance. Results and Conclusion\ VHDL simulation, synthesis and layout design of system are implemented. This 2 D IDCT ASIC design owns best timing performance when compared with other better designs internationally. Results of design prove to be excellent.

Distributed localization for anchor-free sensor networks

Geographic location of nodes is very useful in a sensor network. Previous localization algorithms assume that there exist some anchor nodes in this kind of network, and then other nodes are estimated to create their coordinates. Once there are not anchors to be deployed, those localization algorithms will be invalidated. Many papers in this field focus on anchor-based solutions. The use of anchors introduces many limitations, since anchors require external equipments such as global position system, cause additional power consumption. A novel positioning algorithm is proposed to use a virtual coordinate system based on a new concept--virtual anchor. It is executed in a distributed fashion according to the connectivity of a node and the measured distances to its neighbors. Both the adjacent member information and the ranging distance result are combined to generate the estimated position of a network, one of which is independently adopted for localization previously. At the position refinement stage the intermediate estimation of a node begins to be evaluated on its reliability for position mutation; thus the positioning optimization process of the whole network is avoided falling into a local optimal solution. Simulation results prove that the algorithm can resolve the distributed localization problem for anchor-free sensor networks, and is superior to previous methods in terms of its positioning capability under a variety of circumstances.