Question: An overview of user interfaces for constructing visualizations in design tools.

This paper introduces angular brushing for parallel coordinates (PC) as an innovative technique to emphasize data properties that are dependent on two dimensions, rather than one. We also showcase smooth brushing of PC as a user-friendly tool for defining non-binary degrees of interest, which can then be utilized in feature-plus-context (F+C) visualizations. Additionally, we provide a brief overview of our implementation and its application in visualizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) data, highlighting the enhanced capabilities of our approach in uncovering complex relationships within multidimensional datasets.

The potential for integration of digital games and learning becomes ever more significant recently. One of the goals in educational game design is to create engaging and immersive learning experiences for delivering specified learning goals, outcomes and experiences. However, there is limited number of research done on game usability or quality of game user interface. Failure to design usable game interfaces can interfere with the larger goal of creating a compelling experience for users and can have a negative effect on the overall quality and success of a game. In this paper, we review usability problems identified by previous researchers and propose a history educational game design which includes pedagogical and game design component. Some snapshots of our game module are also presented. Finally we present a usability evaluation method for history educational game design. From our critical literature reviews, we also proposed six constructs which are interface, mechanics, gameplay, playability, feedback and immersion for usability evaluation.

Large, heterogeneous volumes of simulation data are calculated and stored in many disciplines, e.g. in climate and climate impact research. To gain insight, current climate analysis applies statistical methods and model sensitivity analyzes in combination with standard visualization techniques. However, there are some obstacles for researchers in applying the full functionality of sophisticated visualization, exploiting the available interaction and visualization functionality in order to go beyond data presentation tasks. In particular, there is a gap between available and actually applied multi-variate visualization techniques. Furthermore, visual data comparison of simulation (and measured) data is still a challenging task. Consequently, this paper introduces a library of visualization techniques, tailored to support exploration and evaluation of climate simulation data. These techniques are integrated into the easy-to-use visualization framework SimEnvVis - designed as a front-end user interface to a simulation environment - which provides a high level of user support generating visual representations.

Decision making under uncertainty can lead to irrational behaviour; such errors are often being referred to as cognitive biases. Related work in this area has tended to focus on the human’s analytic and sensemaking processes. This paper puts forward a novel perspective on this, proposing that some cognitive biases can also occur in the process of viewing visualisations. Consequently, this source of error may have a negative impact on decision making. This paper presents examples of situations where cognitive biases in visualisation can occur and outlines a future user study to investigate the anchoring and adjustment cognitive biases in visualisation.

Nowadays, the convergence of devices, electronic computing, and massive media produces huge volumes of information, which demands the need for faster and more efficient interaction between users and information. How to make information access manageable, efficient, and easy becomes the major challenge for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers. The different types of computing devices, such as PDAs (personal digital assistants), tablet PCs, desktops, game consoles, and the next generation phones, provide many different modalities for information access. This makes it possible to dynamically adapt application user interfaces to the changing context. However, as applications go more and more pervasive, these devices show theirs limited input/output capacity caused by small visual displays, use of hands to operate buttons and the lack of an alphanumeric keyboard and mouse (Gu & Gilbert, 2004). Voice User Interface (VUI) systems are capable of, besides recognizing the voice of their users, to understand voice commands, and to provide responses to them, usually, in real time. The state-of-the-art in speech technology already allows the development of automatic systems designed to work in real conditions. VUI is perhaps the most critical factor in the success of any automated speech recognition (ASR) system, determining whether the user experience will be satisfying or frustrating, or even whether the customer will remain one. This chapter describes a practical methodology for creating an effective VUI design. The methodology is scientifically based on principles in linguistics, psychology, and language technology (Cohen et al. 2004; San-Segundo et al., 2005). Given the limited input/output capabilities of mobile devices, speech presents an excellent way to enter and retrieve information either alone or in combination with other modalities. Furthermore, people with disabilities should be provided with a wide range of alternative interaction modalities other than the traditional screen-mouse based desktop computing devices. Whether the disability is temporary or permanent, people with reading difficulty, visual impairment, and/or any difficulty using a keyboard, or mouse can rely on speech as an alternate approach for information access. Source: User Interfaces, Book edited by: Rita Mátrai, ISBN 978-953-307-084-1, pp. 270, May 2010, INTECH, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM

Rapid advancements in consumer technologies enable people to collect a wide range of personal data. With a proper means for people to ask questions and explore their data, longitudinal data feeds from multiple self-tracking tools pose great opportunities to foster deep self-reflection. However, most self-tracking tools lack support for self-reflection beyond providing simple feedback. Our overarching goal is to support self-trackers in reflecting on their data and gaining rich insights through visual data exploration. As a first step toward the goal, we built a web-based application called Visualized Self, and conducted an in-lab think-aloud study (N = 11) to examine how people reflect on their personal data and what types of insights they gain throughout the reflection. We discuss lessons learned from studying with Visualized Self, and suggest directions for designing visual data exploration tools for fostering self-reflection.

We present Virtual Notepad, a collection of interface tools that allows the user to take notes, annotate documents and input text using a pen, while still immersed in virtual environments (VEs). Using a spatially-tracked, pressure-sensitive graphics tablet, pen and handwriting recognition software, Virtual Notepad explores handwriting as a new modality for interaction in immersive VEs. This paper reports details of the Virtual Notepad interface and interaction techniques, discusses implementation and design issues, reports the results of initial evaluation and overviews possible applications of virtual handwriting.

New systems are designed with improved quality or features. However, not every new system lives to its pre-development expectations when tested with end-users. The evaluation of the first version of our LOCO-Analyst tool for providing teachers with feedback on students learning activities and performance led to the enhancing the visualization features of the tool. The second evaluation of the improved tool allowed us to see how the improvements affect the user perceptions of the tool. Here, we present the qualitative results of our two evaluations. The results show that educators find the kinds of feedback implemented in the tool informative and they value the mix of textual and graphical representations of different kinds of feedback provided by the tool.

A designer often has to evaluate alternative designs during the development of a system. A multitude of Design-Space Exploration (DSE) techniques exist in the literature. Integration of these techniques into the modelling paradigm is needed when a model-driven engineering approach is used for designing systems. To a greater or lesser extent, the integration of those different DSE techniques share characteristics with each other. Inspired by software design patterns, we introduce an initial pattern catalogue to categorise the embedding of different DSE techniques in an MDE context. We demonstrate their use by a literature survey and discuss the consequences of each pattern.

Recent technological advances in connected-speech recognition and position sensing in space have encouraged the notion that voice and gesture inputs at the graphics interface can converge to provide a concerted, natural user modality.
 The work described herein involves the user commanding simple shapes about a large-screen graphics display surface. Because voice can be augmented with simultaneous pointing, the free usage of pronouns becomes possible, with a corresponding gain in naturalness and economy of expression. Conversely, gesture aided by voice gains precision in its power to reference.

We are interested in desiging systems that support communication and collaboration among large groups of people over computing networks. We begin by asking what properties of the physical world support graceful human-human communication in face-to-face situations, and argue that it is possible to design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activites visible to one another. We call such systems “socially translucent systems” and suggest that they have three characteristics—visbility, awareness, and accountability—which enable people to draw upon their experience and expertise to structure their interactions with one another. To motivate and focus our ideas we develop a vision of knowledge communities, conversationally based systems that support the creation, management and reuse of knowledge in a social context. We describe our experience in designing and deploying one layer of functionality for knowledge communities, embodied in a working system called “Barbie” and discuss research issues raised by a socially translucent approach to design.


Question: Shuffled frog-leaping algorithm: a metaheuristic memetic method for discrete optimization problems.

This paper investigates the collective movement patterns observed in flocks of birds, herds of land animals, and schools of fish, and how such complex behaviors can be replicated in computer animation. Unlike traditional methods that script the movement of each individual animal, this research proposes a simulation-based approach as a more realistic alternative. The simulation model is an advanced version of a particle system, where the animals are treated as particles. The coordinated movement of the group is achieved through a distributed behavioral model, mirroring the natural dynamics that govern real-world flocks, herds, and schools. Each animal in the simulation is an autonomous agent that decides its own course based on its perception of the environment, the laws of simulated physics that dictate its motion, and a set of programmed behaviors. The overall motion of the group emerges from the intricate interplay of these simple individual behaviors, closely resembling the spontaneous and coordinated actions seen in nature. This methodology provides a powerful tool for animators to create more lifelike and dynamic group behaviors in computer-generated scenes.

Bio-inspired evolutionary algorithms are probabilistic search methods that mimic natural biological evolution. They show the behavior of the biological entities interacting locally with one another or with their environment to solve complex problems. This paper aims to analyze the most predominantly used bio-inspired optimization techniques that have been used for stock market prediction and hence present a comparative study between them.

This work presents a multi-objective optimization method based on the artificial bee colony, called the MOABC, for optimizing problems with multiple objectives. The MOABC uses a grid-based approach to adaptively assess the Pareto frontmaintained in an external archive. The external archive is used to control the flying behaviours of the individuals and structuring the bee colony. The employed bees adjust their trajectories based on the non-dominated solutionsmaintained in the external archive. On the other hand, the onlooker bees select the food sources advertised by the employed bees to update their positions. The qualities of these food sources are computed based on the Pareto dominance notion. The scout bees are used by the MOABC to get rid of food sources with poor qualities. The proposed algorithm was evaluated on a set of standard test problems in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach is competitive compared to other algorithms considered in this work. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this work, performance of the Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm which is a recently proposed algorithm, has been tested on fuzzy clustering. We applied the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm fuzzy clustering to classify different data sets; Cancer, Diabetes and Heart from UCI database, a collection of classification benchmark problems. The results indicate that the performance of Artificial Bee Colony Optimization Algorithm is successful in fuzzy clustering.

This paper introduces ant colony system (ACS), a distributed algorithm that is applied to the traveling salesman problem (TSP). In ACS, a set of cooperating agents called ants cooperate to find good solutions to TSPs. Ants cooperate using an indirect form of communication mediated by pheromone they deposit on the edges of the TSP graph while building solutions. We study ACS by running experiments to understand its operation. The results show that ACS outperforms other nature-inspired algorithms such as simulated annealing and evolutionary computation, and we conclude comparing ACS-3-opt, a version of ACS augmented with a local search procedure, to some of the best performing algorithms for symmetric and asymmetric TSPs. Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol.1, No.1, 1997. In press.

In this paper we describe JCLEC, a Java software system for the development of evolutionary computation applications. This system has been designed as a framework, applying design patterns to maximize its reusability and adaptability to new paradigms with a minimum of programming effort. JCLEC architecture comprises three main modules: the core contains all abstract type definitions and their implementation; experiments runner is a scripting environment to run algorithms in batch mode; finally, GenLab is a graphical user interface that allows users to configure an algorithm, to execute it interactively and to visualize the results obtained. The use of JCLEC system is illustrated though the analysis of one case study: the resolution of the 0/1 knapsack problem by means of evolutionary algorithms.

Extracting an optimal set of parameter values for a MOS device is great importance in contemporary technology is a complex problem. Traditional methods of parameter extraction can produce far from optimal solutions because of the presence of local optimum in the solution space. Genetic algorithms are well suited for finding near optimal solutions in irregular parameter spaces. In this study*, We have applied a genetic algorithm to the problem of device model parameter extraction and are able to produce models of superior accuracy in much less time and with less reliance on human expertise. MOS transistor’s parameters have been extracted and optimized with genetic algorithm. 0.35μm fabricated by C35 process have been used for the results of experimental studies of parameter extraction. Extracted parameters’ characteristic data results have been compared with measurement results. Different values of parameters of genetic algorithm, such as population size, crossover rate , and generation size are compared by different tests.

In recent years there has been growing interest in algorithms inspired by the observation of natural phenomena to define computational procedures which can solve complex problems. In this article we introduce a distributed heuristic algorithm which was inspired by the observation of the behavior of ant colonies and we propose its use for the Quadratic Assignment Problem. Finally the results obtained in solving some classical instances of the problem are compared with those obtained from other evolutionary heuristics to evaluate the quality of the system proposed. ^Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione, Università di Bologna, Via Sacchi 3, 47023, Cesena, Italy, EU, maniezzo@csr.unibo.it & Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133, Milano, Italy, EU, colorni@elet.polimi.it #IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Av. Franklin Roosevelt 50, CP 194/6, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, EU, mdorigo@ulb.ac.be

The emerging discipline of algorithm engineering has primarily focussed on transforming pencil-and-paper sequential algorithms into robust, efficient, well tested, and easily used implementations. As parallel computing becomes ubiquitous, we need to extend algorithm engineering techniques to parallel computation. Such an extension adds significant complications. After a short review of algorithm engineering achievements for sequential computing, we review the various complications caused by parallel computing, present some examples of successful efforts, and give a personal view of possible future research.

Meta-learning is a promising method to achieve efficient training method towards deep neural net and has been attracting increases interests in recent years. But most of the current methods are still not capable to train complex neuron net model with long-time training process. In this paper, a novel second-order meta-optimizer, named Meta-learning with Hessian-Free(MLHF) approach, is proposed based on the Hessian-Free approach. Two recurrent neural networks are established to generate the damping and the precondition matrix of this Hessian-Free framework. A series of techniques to meta-train the MLHF towards stable and reinforce the meta-training of this optimizer, including the gradient calculation of H . Numerical experiments on deep convolution neural nets, including CUDA-convnet and ResNet18(v2), with datasets of CIFAR10 and ILSVRC2012, indicate that the MLHF shows good and continuous training performance during the whole long-time training process, i.e., both the rapiddecreasing early stage and the steadily-deceasing later stage, and so is a promising meta-learning framework towards elevating the training efficiency in real-world deep neural nets.

Harmony search (HS) algorithm was applied to solving Sudoku puzzle. The HS is an evolutionary algorithm which mimics musicians’ behaviors such as random play, memory-based play, and pitch-adjusted play when they perform improvisation. Sudoku puzzles in this study were formulated as an optimization problem with number-uniqueness penalties. HS could successfully solve the optimization problem after 285 function evaluations, taking 9 seconds. Also, sensitivity analysis of HS parameters was performed to obtain a better idea of algorithm parameter values.


Question: Shuffled frog-leaping algorithm: a metaheuristic memetic method for discrete optimization problems.

This paper explores an innovative optimization technique rooted in particle swarm theory, designed for tackling nonlinear function optimization challenges. The study delves into two distinct paradigms of this methodology, with a particular focus on a recently introduced locally oriented approach. Comparative analysis of both paradigms is carried out through benchmark testing, which highlights their efficacy and potential. Additionally, the paper outlines potential applications of this particle swarm optimization technique, encompassing neural network training and robot task learning. It further examines the interconnections between particle swarm optimization, artificial life, and evolutionary computation, offering insights into the broader context of this optimization strategy.

**Question**: A comparative study of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms for the bi-objective traveling salesman problem

**Documents**: A new multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for multi-objective optimization problems
This paper presents a new multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) for solving multi-objective optimization problems. The proposed MOEA incorporates a new dominance criterion, a diversity maintenance strategy, and a local search procedure. The dominance criterion is used to guide the search towards the Pareto front, while the diversity maintenance strategy ensures a good spread of solutions along the front. The local search procedure is employed to improve the quality of the solutions. The proposed MOEA is compared with several state-of-the-art MOEAs on a set of benchmark problems. The results show that the proposed MOEA outperforms the other MOEAs in terms of solution quality and diversity.

**Similar Documents**: This paper introduces an enhanced multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) specifically designed for addressing multi-objective optimization tasks. The proposed MOEA features a novel dominance criterion, an innovative diversity maintenance strategy, and an integrated local search mechanism. The dominance criterion facilitates the algorithm's navigation towards the Pareto front, ensuring that the search is directed effectively. Meanwhile, the diversity maintenance strategy is crucial for achieving a well-distributed set of solutions across the Pareto front. The local search component further refines the quality of the solutions by conducting detailed exploration in promising areas. Comparative evaluation against leading MOEAs on a series of benchmark problems reveals that the proposed MOEA surpasses its counterparts in terms of both solution quality and diversity, demonstrating its superior performance in multi-objective optimization scenarios.

A significant stream of literature which draws inspiration from the foraging activities of various organisms to design optimisation algorithms has emerged over the past decade. The success of these algorithms across a wide variety of application domains has spurred interest in the examination of the foraging behaviours of other organisms to develop novel and powerful, optimisation algorithms. A variety of animals, including some species of birds and bats, engage in social roosting whereby large numbers of conspecifics gather together to roost, either overnight or for longer periods. It has been claimed that these roosts can serve as information centres to spread knowledge concerning the location of food resources in the environment. In this paper we look at the social roosting and foraging behaviour of one species of bird, the common raven, and take inspiration from this to design a novel optimisation algorithm which we call the raven roosting optimisation algorithm. The utility of the algorithm is assessed on a series of benchmark problems and the results are found to be competitive. We also provide a novel taxonomy which classifies foraging-inspired optimisation algorithms based on the underlying social communication mechanism embedded in the algorithms.

(0) Many discrete programming algorithms are being proposed. One thing most of them have in common is that they do not work very well. Solving problems that are a priori finite, astronomically finite, is preferably a matter of finding algorithms that are s o m e h o w better than finite. These considerations prompt looking for good algorithms and trying to understand how and why at least a few combinatorial problems have them. (1) Let H be a finite (for convenience) set of real-valued vectors , x = [xj] , ] ~ E. Often all the members of H will be integer-valued; often they will all be {0, 1}-valued. The index-set, E, is any finite set of elements. Let c = [cj], ] ~ E, be any real vector on E, called the objective or weighting of E. The problem of finding a member o f H which maximizes (or minimizes) cx = iN cjx/, j ~ E, we call a loco problem or loco programming. "Loco" stands for "linear-objective combinatorial". (2) In order for a loco problem to be a completely defined problem, the way H is given must of course be specified. There are various ways to describe implicitly very large sets H so tha t it is relatively easy to determine whether or not any particular vector is a member of H. One well-known:way is in linear programming, where H is the set of extreme points of the solution-set of a given finite system, L, of linear equations and <_ type linear inequalities in the variables xj (briefly, a

Simulated Annealing has been a very successful general algorithm for the solution of large, complex combinatorial optimization problems. Since its introduction, several applications in different fields of engineering, such as integrated circuit placement, optimal encoding, resource allocation, logic synthesis, have been developed. In parallel, theoretical studies have been focusing on the reasons for the excellent behavior of the algorithm. This paper reviews most of the important results on the theory of Simulated Annealing, placing them in a unified framework. New results are reported as well.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a new multiobjective algorithm called Vector Evaluated Population Based Incremental Learning (VEPBIL). The new algorithm was applied in solving a real world application named Reinsurance Contract Optimization (RCO), which is a multiobjective problem consisting of maximizing two conflicting functions: expected return and risk. The VEPBIL was tested on two instances of the problem composed by 7 and 15 layers of real anonymized data. In order to evaluate the algorithm, metrics such as hyper volume, number of solutions and coverage were used. A comparisons against Vector Evaluated Differential evolution (VEDE) is also carried out. The comparison has shown that VEPBIL can dominate about 70% and 50% of solutions from VEDE using 7 and 15 layers respectively, whereas VEDE dominates about 10% and 30% of solutions in the way around.

In this paper, we present the swarm intelligence (SI) concept and mention some metaheuristics belonging to the SI. We present the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and the ant colony optimization (ACO) method as the representatives of the SI approach. In recent years, researchers are eager to develop and apply a variety of these two methods, despite the development of many other newer methods as Bat or FireFly algorithms. Presenting the PSO and ACO we put their pseudocode, their properties, and intuition lying behind them. Next, we focus on their real-life applications, indicating many papers presented varieties of basic algorithms and the areas of their applications.

Classification is part of various applications and it is an important problem that represents active research topic. Support vector machine is one of the widely used and very powerful classifier. The accuracy of support vector machine highly depends on learning parameters. Optimal parameters can be efficiently determined by using swarm intelligence algorithms. In this paper, we proposed recent elephant herding optimization algorithm for support vector machine parameter tuning. The proposed approach is tested on standard datasets and it was compared to other approaches from literature. The results of computational experiments show that our proposed algorithm outperformed genetic algorithms and grid search considering accuracy of classification.

Simulated annealing (SA) presents an optimization technique with several striking positive and negative features. Perhaps its most salient feature, statistically promising to deliver an optimal solution, in current practice is often spurned to use instead modified faster algorithms, “simulated quenching” (SQ). Using the author’s Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA) code, some examples are given which demonstrate how SQ can be much faster than SA without sacrificing accuracy.

Given a parallel program represented by a task graph, the objective of a scheduling algorithm is to minimize the overall execution time of the program by properly assigning the nodes of the graph to the processors. This multiprocessor scheduling problem is NP-complete even with simplifying assumptions and becomes more complex under relaxed assumptions such as arbitrary precedence constraints, and arbitrary task execution and communication times. The present literature on this topic is a large repertoire of heuristics that produce good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. These heuristics, however, have restricted applicability in a practical environment because they have a number of fundamental problems including high time complexity, lack of scalability, and no performance guarantee with respect to optimal solutions. Recently, genetic algorithms (GAs) have been widely reckoned as a useful vehicle for obtaining high quality or even optimal solutions for a broad range of combinatorial optimization problems. While a few GAs for scheduling have already been suggested, in this paper we propose a novel GA-based algorithm with an objective to simultaneously meet the goals of high performance, scalability, and fast running time. The proposed parallel genetic scheduling (PGS) algorithm itself is a parallel algorithm which generates high quality solutions in a short time. By encoding the scheduling list as a chromosome, the PGS algorithm can potentially generate an optimal scheduling list which in turn leads to an optimal schedule. The major strength of the PGS algorithm lies in its two efficient genetic operators: the order crossover and mutation. These operators effectively combine the building-blocks of good scheduling lists to construct better lists. The proposed algorithm is evaluated through a robust comparison with two heuristics best known in terms of performance and time complexity. It outperforms both heuristics while taking considerably less running time. When evaluated with random task graphs for which optimal solutions are known, the PGS algorithm generates optimal solutions for more than half of the test cases and close-to-optimal for the other half. © 1997 Academic Press

This paper presents a metaheuristic algorithm inspired in evolutionary computation and swarm intelligence concepts and fundamentals of echolocation of micro bats. The aim is to optimize the mono and multiobjective optimization problems related to the brushless DC wheel motor problems, which has 5 design parameters and 6 constraints for the mono-objective problem and 2 objectives, 5 design parameters, and 5 constraints for multiobjective version. Furthermore, results are compared with other optimization approaches proposed in the recent literature, showing the feasibility of this newly introduced technique to high nonlinear problems in electromagnetics.

It is widely believed that in order to solve large scale global optimization problems an appropriate mixture of local approximation and global exploration is necessary. Local approximation, if first order information on the objective function is available, is efficiently performed by means of local optimization methods. Unfortunately, global exploration, in absence of some kind of global information on the problem, is a “blind” procedure, aimed at placing observations as evenly as possible in the search domain. Often this procedure reduces to uniform random sampling (like in Multistart algorithms, or in techniques based on clustering). In this paper we propose a new framework for global exploration which tries to guide random exploration towards the region of attraction of low-level local optima. The main idea originated by the use of smoothing techniques (based on gaussian convolutions): the possibility of applying a smoothing transformation not to the objective function but to the result of local searches seems to have never been explored yet. Although an exact smoothing of the results of local searches is impossible to implement, in this paper we propose a computational approximation scheme which has proven to be very efficient and (maybe more important) extremely robust in solving large scale global optimization problems with huge numbers of local optima. ∗Email: b.addis@ing.unifi.it Dip. Sistemi e Informatica Università di Firenze †Email: locatell@di.unito.it Dip. Informatica Università di Torino ‡Email: schoen@ing.unifi.it Dip. Sistemi e Informatica Università di Firenze


Question: Shuffled frog-leaping algorithm: a metaheuristic memetic method for discrete optimization problems.

This paper delves into Smalltalk-80, a pioneering object-oriented programming language developed at Xerox PARC. It explores the language's syntax and semantics, focusing on its unique use of punctuation for message sending, which contrasts with other languages like Lisp. Smalltalk-80's runtime environment is discussed, highlighting its virtual machine, which enables the language's dynamic nature. The text also touches upon the evolution of Smalltalk, noting how its modern incarnations, such as VisualWorks and ObjectStudio, have maintained its core principles while adapting to new programming paradigms. The significance of Smalltalk in the context of software development is emphasized, particularly its role in popularizing object-oriented programming and agile methodologies. The paper underscores the importance of understanding Smalltalk's design and implementation, as it has influenced numerous subsequent programming languages and development practices.

**Question**: A survey of the applications of evolutionary algorithms in manufacturing

**Documents**: A survey of the applications of evolutionary algorithms in manufacturing
The paper surveys the applications of evolutionary algorithms in manufacturing, with emphasis on their use in process planning, scheduling, design, and control. It begins by providing a brief overview of evolutionary algorithms, including genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, and differential evolution. The paper then discusses the application of these algorithms in manufacturing, highlighting their effectiveness in solving complex, multi-objective problems that are difficult to solve using traditional optimization methods. The paper concludes by summarizing the current state of the art in the application of evolutionary algorithms in manufacturing and identifying areas for future research.

**Similar Documents**: This comprehensive review explores the integration of evolutionary algorithms into the manufacturing sector, focusing on their pivotal role in process planning, scheduling, product design, and system control. The document starts with an introduction to various evolutionary algorithms, such as genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, and differential evolution, outlining their fundamental principles and mechanisms. Subsequently, it delves into the practical applications of these algorithms within manufacturing contexts, showcasing their capability to tackle intricate, multi-objective problems that often defy conventional optimization techniques. The review concludes with a synthesis of the latest advancements in applying evolutionary algorithms to manufacturing, pinpointing promising areas for future investigation and innovation.

In this paper we introduce Ant-Q, a family of algorithms which present many similarities with Q-learning (Watkins, 1989), and which we apply to the solution of symmetric and asymmetric instances of the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Ant-Q algorithms were inspired by work on the ant system (AS), a distributed algorithm for combinatorial optimization based on the metaphor of ant colonies which was recently proposed in (Dorigo, 1992; Dorigo, Maniezzo and Colorni, 1996). We show that AS is a particular instance of the Ant-Q family, and that there are instances of this family which perform better than AS. We experimentally investigate the functioning of Ant-Q and we show that the results obtained by Ant-Q on symmetric TSP's are competitive with those obtained by other heuristic approaches based on neural networks or local search. Finally, we apply Ant-Q to some difficult asymmetric TSP's obtaining very good results: Ant-Q was able to find solutions of a quality which usually can be found only by very specialized algorithms.

Real life optimization problems require techniques that properly explore the search spaces to obtain the best solutions. In this sense, it is common that traditional optimization algorithms fail in local optimal values. The Sine Cosine Algorithms (SCA) has been recently proposed; it is a global optimization approach based on two trigonometric functions. SCA uses the sine and cosine functions to modify a set of candidate solutions; such operators create a balance between exploration and exploitation of the search space. However, like other similar approaches, SCA tends to be stuck into sub-optimal regions that it is reflected in the computational effort required to find the best values. This situation occurs due that the operators used for exploration do not work well to analyze the search space. This paper presents an improved version of SCA that considers the opposition based learning (OBL) as a mechanism for a better exploration of the search space generating more accurate solutions. OBL is a machine learning strategy commonly used to increase the performance of metaheuristic algorithms. OBL considers the opposite position of a solution in the search space. Based on the objective function value, the OBL selects the best element between the original solution and its opposite position; this task increases the accuracy of the optimization process. The hybridization of concepts from different fields is crucial in intelligent and expert systems; it helps to combine the advantages of algorithms to generate more efficient approaches. The proposed method is an example of this combination; it has been tested over several benchmark functions and engineering problems. Such results support the efficacy of the proposed approach to find the optimal solutions in complex search spaces. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. e w g t S f t ( fi b M a b

In this paper, a variant of Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) that uses reinforcement learning principles combined with neural networks to enhance the performance is proposed. The aim is to overcome, by reinforced learning, the common challenges of setting the right parameters for the algorithm. In GWO, a single parameter is used to control the exploration/exploitation rate which influences the performance of the algorithm. Rather than using a global way to change this parameter for all the agents, we use reinforcement learning to set it on an individual basis. The adaptation of the exploration rate for each agent depends on the agent’s own experience and the current terrain of the search space. In order to achieve this, an experience repository is built based on the neural network to map a set of agents’ states to a set of corresponding actions that specifically influence the exploration rate. The experience repository is updated by all the search agents to reflect experience and to enhance the future actions continuously. The resulted algorithm is called Experienced Grey Wolf Optimizer (EGWO) and its performance is assessed on solving feature selection problems and on finding optimal weights for neural networks algorithm. We use a set of performance indicators to evaluate the efficiency of the method. Results over various datasets demonstrate an advance of the EGWO over the original GWO and other meta-heuristics such as genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization.

In this paper we introduce a restart-CMA-evolution strategy, where the population size is increased for each restart (IPOP). By increasing the population size the search characteristic becomes more global after each restart. The IPOP-CMA-ES is evaluated on the test suit of 25 functions designed for the special session on real-parameter optimization of CEC 2005. Its performance is compared to a local restart strategy with constant small population size. On unimodal functions the performance is similar. On multi-modal functions the local restart strategy significantly outperforms IPOP in 4 test cases whereas IPOP performs significantly better in 29 out of 60 tested cases.

Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) help software engineers find novel solutions to complex problems. When automatic tools explore too many options, they are slow to use and hard to comprehend. GALE is a near-linear time MOEA that builds a piecewise approximation to the surface of best solutions along the Pareto frontier. For each piece, GALE mutates solutions towards the better end. In numerous case studies, GALE finds comparable solutions to standard methods (NSGA-II, SPEA2) using far fewer evaluations (e.g. 20 evaluations, not 1,000). GALE is recommended when a model is expensive to evaluate, or when some audience needs to browse and understand how an MOEA has made its conclusions.

Covering arrays (CAs) are often used as test suites for combinatorial interaction testing to discover interaction faults of real-world systems. Most real-world systems involve constraints, so improving algorithms for covering array generation (CAG) with constraints is beneficial. Two popular methods for constrained CAG are greedy construction and meta-heuristic search. Recently, a meta-heuristic framework called two-mode local search has shown great success in solving classic NPhard problems. We are interested whether this method is also powerful in solving the constrained CAG problem. This work proposes a two-mode meta-heuristic framework for constrained CAG efficiently and presents a new meta-heuristic algorithm called TCA. Experiments show that TCA significantly outperforms state-of-the-art solvers on 3-way constrained CAG. Further experiments demonstrate that TCA also performs much better than its competitors on 2-way constrained CAG.

In multi-cloud environment, task scheduling has attracted a lot of attention due to NP-Complete nature of the problem. Moreover, it is very challenging due to heterogeneity of the cloud resources with varying capacities and functionalities. Therefore, minimizing the makespan for task scheduling is a challenging issue. In this paper, we propose a genetic algorithm (GA) based approach for solving task scheduling problem. The algorithm is described with innovative idea of fitness function derivation and mutation. The proposed algorithm is exposed to rigorous testing using various benchmark datasets and its performance is evaluated in terms of total makespan.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of a new multiobjective algorithm called Vector Evaluated Population Based Incremental Learning (VEPBIL). The new algorithm was applied in solving a real world application named Reinsurance Contract Optimization (RCO), which is a multiobjective problem consisting of maximizing two conflicting functions: expected return and risk. The VEPBIL was tested on two instances of the problem composed by 7 and 15 layers of real anonymized data. In order to evaluate the algorithm, metrics such as hyper volume, number of solutions and coverage were used. A comparisons against Vector Evaluated Differential evolution (VEDE) is also carried out. The comparison has shown that VEPBIL can dominate about 70% and 50% of solutions from VEDE using 7 and 15 layers respectively, whereas VEDE dominates about 10% and 30% of solutions in the way around.

In this study, a novel clustering-based selection strategy of nondominated individuals for evolutionary multi-objective optimization is proposed. The new strategy partitions the nondominated individuals in current Pareto front adaptively into desired clusters. Then one representative individual will be selected in each cluster for pruning nondominated individuals. In order to evaluate the validity of the new strategy, we apply it into one state of the art multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. The experimental results based on thirteen benchmark problems show that the new strategy improves the performance obviously in terms of breadth and uniformity of nondominated solutions.

This article gives a comprehensive introduction into one of the main branches of evolutionary computation – the evolution strategies (ES) the history of which dates back to the 1960s in Germany. Starting from a survey of history the philosophical background is explained in order to make understandable why ES are realized in the way they are. Basic ES algorithms and design principles for variation and selection operators as well as theoretical issues are presented, and future branches of ES research are discussed.


Question: Shuffled frog-leaping algorithm: a memetic metaheuristic for solving discrete optimization problems.

This article presents particle systems, an innovative technique for simulating and modeling a class of fuzzy objects, including phenomena like fire, clouds, and water. Particle systems adopt a unique approach by representing an object as a cluster of fundamental particles that collectively define its spatial volume. Throughout a given timeframe, particles are dynamically introduced into the system, undergo transformations in terms of motion and shape, and eventually exit the system. This method enables the representation of motion, form changes, and dynamics that are beyond the capabilities of conventional surface-based models. An added advantage of particle systems is their ability to handle motion blur effortlessly, thus avoiding temporal aliasing or strobing effects. Stochastic processes are employed to generate and regulate the multitude of particles within the system, ensuring a natural and realistic behavior. The paper illustrates the application of particle systems through a case study involving the fire wall element from the Genesis Demo sequence featured in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This showcases the technique's effectiveness in creating visually compelling and dynamic simulations of complex natural phenomena.

In this paper we describe JCLEC, a Java software system for the development of evolutionary computation applications. This system has been designed as a framework, applying design patterns to maximize its reusability and adaptability to new paradigms with a minimum of programming effort. JCLEC architecture comprises three main modules: the core contains all abstract type definitions and their implementation; experiments runner is a scripting environment to run algorithms in batch mode; finally, GenLab is a graphical user interface that allows users to configure an algorithm, to execute it interactively and to visualize the results obtained. The use of JCLEC system is illustrated though the analysis of one case study: the resolution of the 0/1 knapsack problem by means of evolutionary algorithms.

Cloud computing is becoming an increasingly admired paradigm that delivers high-performance computing resources over the Internet to solve the large-scale scientific problems, but still it has various challenges that need to be addressed to execute scientific workflows. The existing research mainly focused on minimizing finishing time (makespan) or minimization of cost while meeting the quality of service requirements. However, most of them do not consider essential characteristic of cloud and major issues, such as virtual machines (VMs) performance variation and acquisition delay. In this paper, we propose a meta-heuristic cost effective genetic algorithm that minimizes the execution cost of the workflow while meeting the deadline in cloud computing environment. We develop novel schemes for encoding, population initialization, crossover, and mutations operators of genetic algorithm. Our proposal considers all the essential characteristics of the cloud as well as VM performance variation and acquisition delay. Performance evaluation on some well-known scientific workflows, such as Montage, LIGO, CyberShake, and Epigenomics of different size exhibits that our proposed algorithm performs better than the current state-of-the-art algorithms.

A Project Scheduling Problem consists in deciding who does what during the software project lifetime. This is a capital issue in the practice of software engineering, since the total budget and human resources involved must be managed optimally in order to end in a successful project. In short, companies are principally concerned with reducing the duration and cost of projects, and these two goals are in conflict with each other. In this work we tackle the problem by using genetic algorithms (GAs) to solve many different software project scenarios. Thanks to our newly developed instance generator we can perform structured studies on the influence the most important problem attributes have on the solutions. Our conclusions show that GAs are quite flexible and accurate for this application, and an important tool for automatic project management. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, an improved version of the moth-flame optimization (MFO) algorithm for image segmentation is proposed to effectively enhance the optimal multilevel thresholding of satellite images. Multilevel thresholding is one of the most widely used methods for image segmentation, as it has efficient processing ability and easy implementation. However, as the number of threshold values increase, it consequently becomes computationally expensive. To overcome this problem, the nature-inspired meta-heuristic named multilevel thresholding moth-flame optimization algorithm (MTMFO) for multilevel thresholding was developed. The improved method proposed herein was tested on various satellite images tested against five different existing methods: the genetic algorithm (GA), the differential evolution (DE) algorithm, the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, and the moth-flame optimization (MFO) algorithm for solving multilevel satellite image thresholding problems. Experimental results indicate that the MTMFO more effectively and accurately identifies the optimal threshold values with respect to the other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms.

This paper introduces a novel parameter automation strategy for the particle swarm algorithm and two further extensions to improve its performance after a predefined number of generations. Initially, to efficiently control the local search and convergence to the global optimum solution, time-varying acceleration coefficients (TVAC) are introduced in addition to the time-varying inertia weight factor in particle swarm optimization (PSO). From the basis of TVAC, two new strategies are discussed to improve the performance of the PSO. First, the concept of "mutation" is introduced to the particle swarm optimization along with TVAC (MPSO-TVAC), by adding a small perturbation to a randomly selected modulus of the velocity vector of a random particle by predefined probability. Second, we introduce a novel particle swarm concept "self-organizing hierarchical particle swarm optimizer with TVAC (HPSO-TVAC)". Under this method, only the "social" part and the "cognitive" part of the particle swarm strategy are considered to estimate the new velocity of each particle and particles are reinitialized whenever they are stagnated in the search space. In addition, to overcome the difficulties of selecting an appropriate mutation step size for different problems, a time-varying mutation step size was introduced. Further, for most of the benchmarks, mutation probability is found to be insensitive to the performance of MPSO-TVAC method. On the other hand, the effect of reinitialization velocity on the performance of HPSO-TVAC method is also observed. Time-varying reinitialization step size is found to be an efficient parameter optimization strategy for HPSO-TVAC method. The HPSO-TVAC strategy outperformed all the methods considered in this investigation for most of the functions. Furthermore, it has also been observed that both the MPSO and HPSO strategies perform poorly when the acceleration coefficients are fixed at two.

Many games have a collection of boards with the difficulty of an instance of the game determined by the starting configuration of the board. Correctly rating the difficulty of the boards is somewhat haphazard and required either a remarkable level of understanding of the game or a good deal of play-testing. In this study we explore evolutionary algorithms as a tool to automatically grade the difficulty of boards for a version of the game sokoban. Mean time-to-solution by an evolutionary algorithm and number of failures to solve a board are used as a surrogate for the difficulty of a board. Initial testing with a simple string-based representation, giving a sequence of moves for the sokoban agent, provided very little signal; it usually failed. Two other representations, based on a reactive linear genetic programming structure called an ISAc list, generated useful hardness-classification information for both hardness surrogates. These two representations differ in that one uses a randomly initialized population of ISAc lists while the other initializes populations with competent agents pre-trained on random collections of sokoban boards. The study encompasses four hardness surrogates: probability-of-failure and mean time-to-solution for each of these two representations. All four are found to generate similar information about board hardness, but probability-of-failure with pre-evolved agents is found to be faster to compute and to have a clearer meaning than the other three board-hardness surrogates.

Swarm Intelligence is the part of Artificial Intel ligence based on study of actions of individuals in various decentralized sys tems. The Bee Colony Optimization (BCO) metaheuristic has been introduce fairly recently as a new direction in the field of Swarm Intelligence. Artif icial bees represent agents, which collaboratively solve complex combinatorial optimiz ation problem. The chapter presents a classification and analysis of the resul ts achieved using Bee Colony Optimization (BCO) to model complex engineering and management processes. The primary goal of this chapter is to acquaint readers with the basic principles of Bee Colony Optimization, as well as to indicate potenti al BCO applications in engineering and management.

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms often suffer from criticism for the local optimum and premature convergence. In order to overcome these inherent shortcomings shared by most ACO algorithms, we divide the ordinary ants into two types: the utilizationoriented ants and the exploration-oriented ants. The utilization-oriented ants focus on constructing solutions based on the learned experience like ants in many other ACO algorithms. On the other hand, inspired by the adaptive behaviors of some real-world Monomorium ant species who tend to select paths with moderate pheromone concentration, a novel search strategy, that is, a completely new transition rule is designed for the exploration-oriented ants to explore more unknown solutions. In addition, a new corresponding update strategy is also employed. Moreover, applying the new search strategy and update strategy, we propose an improved version of ACO algorithm— Moderate Ant System. This improved algorithm is experimentally turned out to be effective and competitive.

The Proportional - Integral - Derivative (PID) controllers are one of the most popular controllers used in industry because of their remarkable effectiveness, simplicity of implementation and broad applicability. PID tuning is the key issue in the design of PID controllers and most of the tuning processes are implemented manually resulting in difficulty and time consuming. To enhance the capabilities of traditional PID parameters tuning techniques, modern heuristics approaches, such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), are employed recent years. In this paper, a novel tuning method based on Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) is proposed to optimize PID controller parameters. Each fruit fly's position represents a candidate solution for PID parameters. When the fruit fly swarm flies towards one location, it is treated as the evolution of each iterative swarm. After hundreds of iteration, the tuning results - the best PID controller parameters can be obtained. The main advantages of the proposed method include ease of implementation, stable convergence characteristic, large searching range, ease of transformation of such concept into program code and ease of understanding. Simulation results demonstrate that the FOA-Based optimized PID (FOA - PID) controller is with the capability of providing satisfactory closed - loop performance.

Asurveyofcurrentcontinuousnonlinearmultiobjective optimization (MOO) concepts and methods is presented. It consolidates and relates seemingly different terminology and methods. The methods are divided into three major categories: methods with a priori articulation of preferences, methods with a posteriori articulation of preferences, and methods with no articulation of preferences. Genetic algorithms are surveyed as well. Commentary is provided on three fronts, concerning the advantages and pitfalls of individual methods, the different classes of methods, and the field of MOO as a whole. The Characteristics of the most significant methods are summarized. Conclusions are drawn that reflect often-neglected ideas and applicability to engineering problems. It is found that no single approach is superior. Rather, the selection of a specific method depends on the type of information that is provided in the problem, the user’s preferences, the solution requirements, and the availability of software.


Question: Shuffled frog-leaping algorithm: a metaheuristic memetic method for discrete optimization problems.

In the realm of optimization techniques, the Handbook of Genetic Algorithms by L. Davis serves as a pivotal resource, exploring the profound impact of Genetic Algorithms (GAs) on enhancing the texture and quality of plant visuals. GA is a versatile method among various optimization strategies, particularly adept at crafting efficient schedules. This methodology, as detailed in Davis's handbook, has been widely adopted in research to address complex scheduling problems, such as exam timetabling, demonstrating its effectiveness in tackling discrete optimization challenges. The application of GA, as outlined in the Handbook of Genetic Algorithms, has proven to be a valuable tool in optimizing discrete variables, showcasing its potential in diverse fields.

In this paper, an improved version of the moth-flame optimization (MFO) algorithm for image segmentation is proposed to effectively enhance the optimal multilevel thresholding of satellite images. Multilevel thresholding is one of the most widely used methods for image segmentation, as it has efficient processing ability and easy implementation. However, as the number of threshold values increase, it consequently becomes computationally expensive. To overcome this problem, the nature-inspired meta-heuristic named multilevel thresholding moth-flame optimization algorithm (MTMFO) for multilevel thresholding was developed. The improved method proposed herein was tested on various satellite images tested against five different existing methods: the genetic algorithm (GA), the differential evolution (DE) algorithm, the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, and the moth-flame optimization (MFO) algorithm for solving multilevel satellite image thresholding problems. Experimental results indicate that the MTMFO more effectively and accurately identifies the optimal threshold values with respect to the other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms.

Given a parallel program represented by a task graph, the objective of a scheduling algorithm is to minimize the overall execution time of the program by properly assigning the nodes of the graph to the processors. This multiprocessor scheduling problem is NP-complete even with simplifying assumptions and becomes more complex under relaxed assumptions such as arbitrary precedence constraints, and arbitrary task execution and communication times. The present literature on this topic is a large repertoire of heuristics that produce good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. These heuristics, however, have restricted applicability in a practical environment because they have a number of fundamental problems including high time complexity, lack of scalability, and no performance guarantee with respect to optimal solutions. Recently, genetic algorithms (GAs) have been widely reckoned as a useful vehicle for obtaining high quality or even optimal solutions for a broad range of combinatorial optimization problems. While a few GAs for scheduling have already been suggested, in this paper we propose a novel GA-based algorithm with an objective to simultaneously meet the goals of high performance, scalability, and fast running time. The proposed parallel genetic scheduling (PGS) algorithm itself is a parallel algorithm which generates high quality solutions in a short time. By encoding the scheduling list as a chromosome, the PGS algorithm can potentially generate an optimal scheduling list which in turn leads to an optimal schedule. The major strength of the PGS algorithm lies in its two efficient genetic operators: the order crossover and mutation. These operators effectively combine the building-blocks of good scheduling lists to construct better lists. The proposed algorithm is evaluated through a robust comparison with two heuristics best known in terms of performance and time complexity. It outperforms both heuristics while taking considerably less running time. When evaluated with random task graphs for which optimal solutions are known, the PGS algorithm generates optimal solutions for more than half of the test cases and close-to-optimal for the other half. © 1997 Academic Press

A cloud workflow system is a type of platform service which facilitates the automation of distributed applications based on the novel cloud infrastructure. Compared with grid environment, data transfer is a big overhead for cloud workflows due to the market-oriented business model in the cloud environments. In this paper, a Revised Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (RDPSO) is proposed to schedule applications among cloud services that takes both data transmission cost and computation cost into account. Experiment is conducted with a set of workflow applications by varying their data communication costs and computation costs according to a cloud price model. Comparison is made on make span and cost optimization ratio and the cost savings with RDPSO, the standard PSO and BRS (Best Resource Selection) algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed RDPSO algorithm can achieve much more cost savings and better performance on make span and cost optimization.

In this paper we develop a new data structure for implementing heaps (priority queues). Our structure, <italic>Fibonacci heaps</italic> (abbreviated <italic>F-heaps</italic>), extends the binomial queues proposed by Vuillemin and studied further by Brown. F-heaps support arbitrary deletion from an <italic>n</italic>-item heap in <italic>O</italic>(log <italic>n</italic>) amortized time and all other standard heap operations in <italic>O</italic>(1) amortized time. Using F-heaps we are able to obtain improved running times for several network optimization algorithms. In particular, we obtain the following worst-case bounds, where <italic>n</italic> is the number of vertices and <italic>m</italic> the number of edges in the problem graph:<list><item><italic>O</italic>(<italic>n</italic> log <italic>n</italic> + <italic>m</italic>) for the single-source shortest path problem with nonnegative edge lengths, improved from <italic>O</italic>(<italic>m</italic>log<subscrpt>(<italic>m/n</italic>+2)</subscrpt><italic>n</italic>);
</item><item><italic>O</italic>(<italic>n</italic><supscrpt>2</supscrpt>log <italic>n</italic> + <italic>nm</italic>) for the all-pairs shortest path problem, improved from <italic>O</italic>(<italic>nm</italic> log<subscrpt>(<italic>m/n</italic>+2)</subscrpt><italic>n</italic>);
</item><item><italic>O</italic>(<italic>n</italic><supscrpt>2</supscrpt>log <italic>n</italic> + <italic>nm</italic>) for the assignment problem (weighted bipartite matching), improved from <italic>O</italic>(<italic>nm</italic>log<subscrpt>(<italic>m/n</italic>+2)</subscrpt><italic>n</italic>);
</item><item><italic>O</italic>(<italic>mβ</italic>(<italic>m, n</italic>)) for the minimum spanning tree problem, improved from <italic>O</italic>(<italic>m</italic>log log<subscrpt>(<italic>m/n</italic>+2)</subscrpt><italic>n</italic>); where <italic>β</italic>(<italic>m, n</italic>) = min {<italic>i</italic> ↿ log<supscrpt>(<italic>i</italic>)</supscrpt><italic>n</italic> ≤ <italic>m/n</italic>}. Note that <italic>β</italic>(<italic>m, n</italic>) ≤ log<supscrpt>*</supscrpt><italic>n</italic> if <italic>m</italic> ≥ <italic>n</italic>.
</item></list>Of these results, the improved bound for minimum spanning trees is the most striking, although all the results give asymptotic improvements for graphs of appropriate densities.

Clustering is an important research topic in data mining that appears in a wide range of unsupervised classification applications. Partitional clustering algorithms such as the k-means algorithm are the most popular for clustering large datasets. The major problem with the k-means algorithm is that it is sensitive to the selection of the initial partitions and it may converge to local optima. In this paper, we present a hybrid two-phase GAI-PSO+k-means data clustering algorithm that performs fast data clustering and can avoid premature convergence to local optima. In the first phase we utilize the new genetically improved particle swarm optimization algorithm (GAI-PSO) which is a population-based heuristic search technique modeled on the hybrid of cultural and social rules derived from the analysis of the swarm intelligence (PSO) and the concepts of natural selection and evolution (GA). The GAI-PSO combines the standard velocity and position update rules of PSOs with the ideas of selection, mutation and crossover from GAs. The GAI-PSO algorithm searches the solution space to find the optimal initial cluster centroids for the next phase. The second phase is a local refining stage utilizing the k-means algorithm which can efficiently converge to the optimal solution. The proposed algorithm combines the ability of the globalized searching of the evolutionary algorithms and the fast convergence of the k-means algorithm and can avoid the drawback of both. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through several benchmark datasets. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is highly forceful and outperforms the previous approaches such as SA, ACO, PSO and k-means for the partitional clustering problem.

In this study, a novel clustering-based selection strategy of nondominated individuals for evolutionary multi-objective optimization is proposed. The new strategy partitions the nondominated individuals in current Pareto front adaptively into desired clusters. Then one representative individual will be selected in each cluster for pruning nondominated individuals. In order to evaluate the validity of the new strategy, we apply it into one state of the art multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. The experimental results based on thirteen benchmark problems show that the new strategy improves the performance obviously in terms of breadth and uniformity of nondominated solutions.

The Proportional - Integral - Derivative (PID) controllers are one of the most popular controllers used in industry because of their remarkable effectiveness, simplicity of implementation and broad applicability. PID tuning is the key issue in the design of PID controllers and most of the tuning processes are implemented manually resulting in difficulty and time consuming. To enhance the capabilities of traditional PID parameters tuning techniques, modern heuristics approaches, such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), are employed recent years. In this paper, a novel tuning method based on Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) is proposed to optimize PID controller parameters. Each fruit fly's position represents a candidate solution for PID parameters. When the fruit fly swarm flies towards one location, it is treated as the evolution of each iterative swarm. After hundreds of iteration, the tuning results - the best PID controller parameters can be obtained. The main advantages of the proposed method include ease of implementation, stable convergence characteristic, large searching range, ease of transformation of such concept into program code and ease of understanding. Simulation results demonstrate that the FOA-Based optimized PID (FOA - PID) controller is with the capability of providing satisfactory closed - loop performance.

We propose a computationally efficient limited memory Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy for large scale optimization, which we call the LM-CMA-ES. The LM-CMA-ES is a stochastic, derivative-free algorithm for numerical optimization of non-linear, non-convex optimization problems in continuous domain. Inspired by the limited memory BFGS method of Liu and Nocedal (1989), the LM-CMA-ES samples candidate solutions according to a covariance matrix reproduced from m direction vectors selected during the optimization process. The decomposition of the covariance matrix into Cholesky factors allows to reduce the time and memory complexity of the sampling to O(mn), where $n$ is the number of decision variables. When $n$ is large (e.g., n > 1000), even relatively small values of $m$ (e.g., m=20,30) are sufficient to efficiently solve fully non-separable problems and to reduce the overall run-time.

This article gives a comprehensive introduction into one of the main branches of evolutionary computation – the evolution strategies (ES) the history of which dates back to the 1960s in Germany. Starting from a survey of history the philosophical background is explained in order to make understandable why ES are realized in the way they are. Basic ES algorithms and design principles for variation and selection operators as well as theoretical issues are presented, and future branches of ES research are discussed.

In this paper, we present an empirical comparison of some Differential Evolution variants to solve global optimization problems. The aim is to identify which one of them is more suitable to solve an optimization problem, depending on the problem's features and also to identify the variant with the best performance, regardless of the features of the problem to be solved. Eight variants were implemented and tested on 13 benchmark problems taken from the specialized literature. These variants vary in the type of recombination operator used and also in the way in which the mutation is computed. A set of statistical tests were performed in order to obtain more confidence on the validity of the results and to reinforce our discussion. The main aim is that this study can help both researchers and practitioners interested in using differential evolution as a global optimizer, since we expect that our conclusions can provide some insights regarding the advantages or limitations of each of the variants studied.


Question: Technology serving as an operant resource within service (eco)systems.

This paper delves into the transition from goods-focused to service-oriented business models, exploring two distinct mindsets or logics that drive this transformation. The first, known as "goods-dominant (G-D) logic," perceives services as a mere variant of goods, suggesting that traditional goods production and distribution methods should be adapted to accommodate the unique attributes of services. In contrast, the "service-dominant (S-D) logic" positions service as the fundamental essence of economic exchange, advocating for a comprehensive service-driven framework that redefines marketing. This shift to a service-centric logic aligns with trends in business-marketing literature, which increasingly emphasize value creation and network dynamics over product-centric approaches and dyadic exchanges. It also resonates with developments in service marketing and other sub-disciplines. This paper examines these parallels and discusses the implications of a full transition to S-D logic for marketing theory and practice. The prevailing narrative of transitioning to a service focus is based on the observation that economies are increasingly producing and exchanging more services than goods, thereby necessitating a redirection of production and marketing strategies. However, this paper challenges the conventional rationale behind this shift and proposes an alternative logic grounded in a revised understanding of service as a process central to economic exchange. This alternative logic, which we term service-dominant (S-D) logic, not only underscores the necessity of a service focus but also provides a stronger theoretical foundation for both theory development and practical application. The paper argues that a service-centered perspective enriches and unifies marketing thought, elevating it beyond the identification and explanation of business-to-business (B2B) marketing differences to inform mainstream marketing in general. The service-dominant logic contrasts with the goods-dominant logic, which historically has been centered on the good or product as the archetypical unit of exchange. The essence of goods-dominant logic is that economic exchange is fundamentally about value-embedded units of output, ideally produced in isolation from the customer, resulting in standardized, inventoriable goods. This logic, rooted in the work of Adam Smith and solidified during the Industrial Revolution, has been deeply ingrained in management, mainstream academic marketing, and society at large. However, it has posed challenges for marketers, particularly in the mid-20th century, as Alderson noted the need for a marketing interpretation of the whole process of creating utility, rather than an interpretation of the utility created by marketing. The goods-dominant logic and its embedded concepts of value production and value destruction have been deeply embedded in marketing

University libraries in Developing Countries (DCs), hampered by developmental problems, find it hard to provide electronic services. Donor communities have come in to bridge this technology gap by providing funds to university libraries for information technology infrastructure, enabling these university libraries to provide electronic library services to patrons. However, for these services to be utilized effectively, library end-users must accept and use them. To investigate this process in Uganda, this study modifies "The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology" (UTAUT) by replacing "effort expectancy" and "voluntariness" with "relevancy", "awareness" and "benefits" factors. In so doing, we developed the Service Oriented UTAUT (SOUTAUT) model whose dependent constructs predict 133% of the variances in user acceptance and use of e-library services. The study revealed that relevancy moderated by awareness plays a major factor in acceptance and use of e-library services in DCs.

Few studies have examined interactions between IT change and organizational change during information systems evolution (ISE). We propose a dynamic model of ISE where change dynamics are captured in four dimensions: planned change, improvised change, organizational change and IT change. This inductively-generated model yields a rich account of ISE and its drivers by integrating the four change dimensions. The model shows how incremental adjustments in IT and organizational processes often grow into a profound change as users improvise. We demonstrate the value of the dynamic model by illustrating ISE processes in the context of two manufacturing organizations implementing the same system over a study period of five years. This paper makes its contribution by holistically characterizing improvisation in the context of IT and organizational change. Our ISE model moves research in organizational and IT change towards a common framing by showing how each affects the other’s form, function and evolution.

Workflow management systems, a relatively recent technology, are designed to make work more efficient, integrate heterogeneous application systems, and support interorganizational processes in electronic commerce applications. In this paper, we introduce the field of workflow automation, the subject of this special issue of Information Systems Frontiers. In the first part of the paper, we provide basic definitions and frameworks to aid understanding of workflow management technologies. In the remainder of the paper, we discuss technical and management research opportunities in this field and discuss the other contributions to the special issue.

This paper reviews and assesses the emerging research literature on information technology and organizational learning. After discussing issues of meaning and measurement, we identify and assess two main streams of research: studies that apply organizational learning concepts to the process of implementing and using information technology in organizations; and studies concerned with the design of information technology applications to support organizational learning. From the former stream of research, we conclude that experience plays an important, yet indeterminate role in implementation success; learning is accomplished through both formal training and participation in practice; organizational knowledge barriers may be overcome by learning from other organizations; and that learning new technologies is a dynamic process characterized by relatively narrow windows of opportunity. From the latter stream, we conclude that conceptual designs for organizational memory information systems are a valuable contribution to artifact development; learning is enhanced through systems that support communication and discourse; and that information technologies have the potential to both enable and disable organizational learning. Currently, these two streams flow independently of each other, despite their close conceptual and practical links. We advise that future research on information technology and organizational learning proceeds in a more integrated fashion, recognizes the situated nature of organizational learning, focuses on distributed organizational memory, demonstrates the effectiveness of artifacts in practice, and looks for relevant research findings in related fields.

In organizing the knowledge in a field of study, it is common to use classification techniques to organize concepts and approaches along dimensions of interest. In technology domains, an advance often appears in the form of a new way or method for achieving an objective. This paper proposes to use goal modeling to map the means-ends knowledge (“know-how”) in a domain. A know-how map highlights the structure of recognized problems and known solutions in the domain, thus facilitating gap identification and prompting new research and innovation. We contrast the proposed goal-oriented approach with a claim-oriented approach, using Web Page Ranking as a sample domain.

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is considered to provide the mechanism for, amongst others, governing enterprise transformations required by changes in the environment. In this paper, we focus on changes that result from the analysis of information security risks and of their impacts on the services delivered by an enterprise. We present how the concepts of an information system security risks management domain can be mapped into the ArchiMate enterprise architecture modeling language. We illustrate the application of the proposed approach through the handling of a lab case.

One measure of usefulness of a general-purpose distributed computing system is the system’s ability to provide a level of performance commensurate to the degree of multiplicity of resources present in the system. Many different approaches and metrics of performance have been proposed in an attempt to achieve this goal in existing systems. In addition, analogous problem formulations exist in other fields such as control theory, operations research, and production management. However, due to the wide variety of approaches to this problem, it is difficult to meaningfully compare different systems since there is no uniform means for qualitatively or quantitatively evaluating them. It is difficult to successfully build upon existing work or identify areas worthy of additional effort without some understanding of the relationships between past efforts. In this paper, a taxonomy of approaches to the resource management problem is presented in an attempt to provide a common terminology and classification mechanism necessary in addressing this problem. The taxonomy, while presented and discussed in terms of distributed scheduling, is also applicable to most types of resource management. As an illustration of the usefulness of the taxonomy an annotated bibliography is given which classifies a large number of distributed scheduling approaches according to the taxonomy.

Quality assurance in any organization is important for ensuring that service users are satisfied with the service offered. For higher education institutes, the use of service quality measures allows for ideological gaps to be both identified and resolved. The learning analytic community, however, has rarely addressed the concept of service quality. A potential outcome of this is the provision of a learning analytics service that only meets the expectations of certain stakeholders (e.g., managers), whilst overlooking those who are most important (e.g., students). In order to resolve this issue, we outline a framework and our current progress towards developing a scale to assess student expectations and perceptions of learning analytics as a service.

The Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts. Communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements. The institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system. For example, the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states, however, are induced by Ž . Ž . new technologies biotechnology, ICT . The consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of neoevolutionary mechanisms. University research may function increasingly as a locus in the ‘‘laboratory’’ of such knowledge-intensive network transitions. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Distributed Infrastructure Initiatives (DIIs) are communities that collaboratively produce and consume infrastructure. To develop a healthy ecosystem, DIIs require an economic model that balances supply and demand, but there is currently a lack of tooling to support implementing these. In this research, we propose an architecture for a platform that enables DIIs to implement such models, focused around a digital currency based on blockchain technology. The currency is issued according to the amount participants contribute to the initiative, which is quantified based on operational metrics gathered from the infrastructure. Furthermore, the platform enables participants to deploy smart contracts which encode self-enforcing agreements about the infrastructure services they exchange. The architecture has been evaluated through a case study at The Things Network (TTN) a global distributed crowdsourced Internet of Things initiative. The case study revealed that the architecture is effective for the selected case at TTN. In addition, the results motivate future research lines to support scalability (i.e., to deploy the architecture on a larger scale) and security.