scholarly journals Optimal Combination of Aircraft Maintenance Tasks by a Novel Simplex Optimization Method

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Huaiyuan Li ◽  
Hongfu Zuo ◽  
Dan Lei ◽  
Kun Liang ◽  
Tingting Lu

Combining maintenance tasks into work packages is not only necessary for arranging maintenance activities, but also critical for the reduction of maintenance cost. In order to optimize the combination of maintenance tasks by fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm, an improved fuzzy C-means clustering model is introduced in this paper. In order to reduce the dimension, variables representing clustering centers are eliminated in the improved cluster model. So the improved clustering model can be directly solved by the optimization method. To optimize the clustering model, a novel nonlinear simplex optimization method is also proposed in this paper. The novel method searches along all rays emitting from the center to each vertex, and those search directions are rightlyn+1positive basis. The algorithm has both theoretical convergence and good experimental effect. Taking the optimal combination of some maintenance tasks of a certain aircraft as an instance, the novel simplex optimization method and the clustering model both exhibit excellent performance.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 757-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaojie Chen ◽  
Shaoping Zhou ◽  
Chaofeng Chen ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Shuangmiao Zhai

A variety of signal processing algorithms have been proposed to detect and locate defects in plate-like structures. However, the signal-to-noise ratio in these algorithms is too small especially in the reflection wave from the boundary, which further degrades the accuracy of localization of defects. A novel method for localization of defects is proposed in this article, based on the direct wave and fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm. To verify its effectiveness, experiments using the parallel linear and circular array are conducted, respectively. The experimental results show that the proposed method not only accurately locates single defect but also locates double defects in plate-like structures, and by comparing with the current discrete elliptic imaging algorithm, its location error of single defect is reduced from 20–25 mm to 0–3 mm and double defects is also reduced from 60–90 mm to 0–3 mm.


Author(s):  
László Szilágyi ◽  
Szidónia Lefkovits ◽  
Sándor M. Szilágyi

The relaxation of the probabilistic constraint of the fuzzy c-means clustering model was proposed to provide robust algorithms that are insensitive to strong noise and outlier data. These goals were achieved by the possibilistic c-means (PCM) algorithm, but these advantages came together with a sensitivity to cluster prototype initialization. According to the original recommendations, the probabilistic fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm should be applied to establish the cluster initialization and possibilistic penalty terms for PCM. However, when FCM fails to provide valid cluster prototypes due to the presence of noise, PCM has no chance to recover and produce a fine partition. This paper proposes a two-stage c-means clustering algorithm to tackle with most problems enumerated above. In the first stage called initialization, FCM with two modifications is performed: (1) extra cluster added for noisy data; (2) extra variable and constraint added to handle clusters of various diameters. In the second stage, a modified PCM algorithm is carried out, which also contains the cluster width tuning mechanism based on which it adaptively updates the possibilistic penalty terms. The proposed algorithm has less parameters than PCM when the number of clusters is [Formula: see text]. Numerical evaluation involving synthetic and standard test data sets proved the advantages of the proposed clustering model.


Author(s):  
Zaheer Ahmed ◽  
Alberto Cassese ◽  
Gerard van Breukelen ◽  
Jan Schepers

AbstractWe present a novel method, REMAXINT, that captures the gist of two-way interaction in row by column (i.e., two-mode) data, with one observation per cell. REMAXINT is a probabilistic two-mode clustering model that yields two-mode partitions with maximal interaction between row and column clusters. For estimation of the parameters of REMAXINT, we maximize a conditional classification likelihood in which the random row (or column) main effects are conditioned out. For testing the null hypothesis of no interaction between row and column clusters, we propose a $$max-F$$ m a x - F test statistic and discuss its properties. We develop a Monte Carlo approach to obtain its sampling distribution under the null hypothesis. We evaluate the performance of the method through simulation studies. Specifically, for selected values of data size and (true) numbers of clusters, we obtain critical values of the $$max-F$$ m a x - F statistic, determine empirical Type I error rate of the proposed inferential procedure and study its power to reject the null hypothesis. Next, we show that the novel method is useful in a variety of applications by presenting two empirical case studies and end with some concluding remarks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4648
Author(s):  
Rana Muhammad Adnan ◽  
Kulwinder Singh Parmar ◽  
Salim Heddam ◽  
Shamsuddin Shahid ◽  
Ozgur Kisi

The accurate estimation of suspended sediments (SSs) carries significance in determining the volume of dam storage, river carrying capacity, pollution susceptibility, soil erosion potential, aquatic ecological impacts, and the design and operation of hydraulic structures. The presented study proposes a new method for accurately estimating daily SSs using antecedent discharge and sediment information. The novel method is developed by hybridizing the multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) and the Kmeans clustering algorithm (MARS–KM). The proposed method’s efficacy is established by comparing its performance with the adaptive neuro-fuzzy system (ANFIS), MARS, and M5 tree (M5Tree) models in predicting SSs at two stations situated on the Yangtze River of China, according to the three assessment measurements, RMSE, MAE, and NSE. Two modeling scenarios are employed; data are divided into 50–50% for model training and testing in the first scenario, and the training and test data sets are swapped in the second scenario. In Guangyuan Station, the MARS–KM showed a performance improvement compared to ANFIS, MARS, and M5Tree methods in term of RMSE by 39%, 30%, and 18% in the first scenario and by 24%, 22%, and 8% in the second scenario, respectively, while the improvement in RMSE of ANFIS, MARS, and M5Tree was 34%, 26%, and 27% in the first scenario and 7%, 16%, and 6% in the second scenario, respectively, at Beibei Station. Additionally, the MARS–KM models provided much more satisfactory estimates using only discharge values as inputs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 155892502097832
Author(s):  
Jiaqin Zhang ◽  
Jingan Wang ◽  
Le Xing ◽  
Hui’e Liang

As the precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, traditional costumes are in urgent need of scientific research and protection. In particular, there are scanty studies on costume silhouettes, due to the reasons of the need for cultural relic protection, and the strong subjectivity of manual measurement, which limit the accuracy of quantitative research. This paper presents an automatic measurement method for traditional Chinese costume dimensions based on fuzzy C-means clustering and silhouette feature point location. The method is consisted of six steps: (1) costume image acquisition; (2) costume image preprocessing; (3) color space transformation; (4) object clustering segmentation; (5) costume silhouette feature point location; and (6) costume measurement. First, the relative total variation model was used to obtain the environmental robustness and costume color adaptability. Second, the FCM clustering algorithm was used to implement image segmentation to extract the outer silhouette of the costume. Finally, automatic measurement of costume silhouette was achieved by locating its feature points. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method could effectively segment the outer silhouette of a costume image and locate the feature points of the silhouette. The measurement accuracy could meet the requirements of industrial application, thus providing the dual value of costume culture research and industrial application.


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