scholarly journals Case Article—Swirltubs After-Market Product Inventory and Service Case

Author(s):  
Michael F. Gorman

In the Swirltubs case, students apply expected value decision making to a knapsack problem for appliance repairmen. The case is based on a published research paper on work that was actually implemented for a major appliance manufacturer. The case features three parts: (1) problem understanding and definition; (2) optimization results for a small, test problem; and (3) creation and testing of a heuristic for a large-scale implementation that exceeds the limits of Microsoft Excel®. Optionally, an instructor can add risk-analysis simulation and reoptimization under uncertainty in subsequent parts of the project, making it a total of five parts. The case is highly interactive, owing to the relatively unstructured nature of the problem. I have implemented the case over a two- and three-week period format, with upper-level master’s in business administration or master’s in analytics students who have been exposed previously to optimization methods. It has been administered to dozens of students with generally positive feedback.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 4438
Author(s):  
Satyendra Singh ◽  
Manoj Fozdar ◽  
Hasmat Malik ◽  
Maria del Valle Fernández Moreno ◽  
Fausto Pedro García Márquez

It is expected that large-scale producers of wind energy will become dominant players in the future electricity market. However, wind power output is irregular in nature and it is subjected to numerous fluctuations. Due to the effect on the production of wind power, producing a detailed bidding strategy is becoming more complicated in the industry. Therefore, in view of these uncertainties, a competitive bidding approach in a pool-based day-ahead energy marketplace is formulated in this paper for traditional generation with wind power utilities. The profit of the generating utility is optimized by the modified gravitational search algorithm, and the Weibull distribution function is employed to represent the stochastic properties of wind speed profile. The method proposed is being investigated and simplified for the IEEE-30 and IEEE-57 frameworks. The results were compared with the results obtained with other optimization methods to validate the approach.


1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1213-1222 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. Johnson ◽  
D.R. Wowchuk

In this paper we present evidence for a large-scale (synoptic-scale) meteorological mechanism controlling the fire frequency in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains. This large-scale control may explain the similarity in average fire frequencies and timing of change in average fire frequencies for the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains. Over the last 86 years the size distribution of fires (annual area burned) in the southern Canadian Rockies was distinctly bimodal, with a separation between small- and large-fire years at approximately 10–25 ha annual area burned. During the last 35 years, large-fire years had significantly lower fuel moisture conditions and many mid-tropospheric surface-blocking events (high-pressure upper level ridges) during July and August (the period of greatest fire activity). Small-fire years in this period exhibited significantly higher fuel moisture conditions and fewer persistent mid-tropospheric surface-blocking events during July and August. Mid-tropospheric surface-blocking events during large-fire years were teleconnected (spatially and temporally correlated in 50 kPa heights) to upper level troughs in the North Pacific and eastern North America. This relationship takes the form of the positive mode of the Pacific North America pattern.


2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (10) ◽  
pp. 3159-3178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendal Rivière

Barotropic dynamics of upper-tropospheric midlatitude disturbances evolving in different configurations of the zonal weather regime (i.e., in different zonal-like large-scale flows) were studied using observational analyses and barotropic model experiments. The contraction stage of upper-level disturbances that follows their elongation stage leads to an increase of eddy kinetic energy that is called the barotropic regeneration process in this text. This barotropic mechanism is studied through notions of barotropic critical regions (BtCRs) and effective deformation that have been introduced in a previous paper. The effective deformation field is equal to the difference between the square of the large-scale deformation magnitude and the square of the large-scale vorticity. Regions where the effective deformation is positive correspond to regions where the large-scale flow tends to strongly stretch synoptic disturbances. A BtCR is an area separating two large-scale regions of positive effective deformation, one located upstream and on the south side of the jet and the other downstream and on the north side. Such a region presents a discontinuity in the orientation of the dilatation axes and is a potential area where the barotropic regeneration process may occur. Winter days presenting a zonal weather regime in the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis dataset are decomposed, via a partitioning algorithm, into different configurations of the effective deformation field at 300 hPa. A six-cluster partition is obtained. Composite maps of the barotropic generation rate for each cluster exhibit a succession of negative and positive values on both sides of the BtCRs. It confirms statistically that the barotropic regeneration mechanism occurs preferentially about BtCRs. Numerical experiments using a forced barotropic model on the sphere are performed. Each experiment consists of adding a synoptic-scale perturbation to one of the zonal-like jet configurations found in observations, which is kept fixed with time. The combined effects of the effective deformation and nonlinearities are shown to be crucial to reproduce the barotropic regeneration process about BtCRs.


Author(s):  
Ziyi Ma ◽  
Joseph Y. J. Chow

We propose a bilevel transit network frequency setting problem in which the upper level consists of analytical route cost functions and the lower level is an activity-based market equilibrium derived using MATSim-NYC. The use of MATSim in the lower-level problem incorporates sensitivity of the design process to competition from other modes, including ride-hail, and can support large-scale optimization. The proposed method is applied to the existing Brooklyn bus network, which includes 78 bus routes, 650,000 passengers per day, 550 route-km, and 4,696 bus stops. MATSim-NYC modeling of the existing bus network has a ridership-weighted average error per route of 21%. The proposed algorithm is applied to a benchmark network and confirms their predicted 20% growth in ridership using their benchmark design. Applying our proposed algorithm to their network with 78 routes and 24 periods, we have a problem with 3,744 decision variables. The algorithm converged within 10 iterations to a delta of 0.064%. Compared with the existing scenario, we increased ridership by 20% and reduced operating cost by 25%. We improved the farebox recovery ratio from the existing 0.22 to 0.35, 0.06 more than the benchmark design. Analysis of mode substitution effects suggest that 2.5% of trips would be drawn from ride-hail while 74% would come from driving.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bech ◽  
R. Pascual ◽  
T. Rigo ◽  
N. Pineda ◽  
J. M. López ◽  
...  

Abstract. This paper presents an observational study of the tornado outbreak that took place on the 7 September 2005 in the Llobregat delta river, affecting a densely populated and urbanised area and the Barcelona International airport (NE Spain). The site survey confirmed at least five short-lived tornadoes. Four of them were weak (F0, F1) and the other one was significant (F2 on the Fujita scale). They started mostly as waterspouts and moved later inland causing extensive damage estimated in 9 million Euros, three injured people but fortunately no fatalities. Large scale forcing was provided by upper level diffluence and low level warm air advection. Satellite and weather radar images revealed the development of the cells that spawned the waterspouts along a mesoscale convergence line in a highly sheared and relatively low buoyant environment. Further analysis indicated characteristics that could be attributed indistinctively to non-supercell or to mini-supercell thunderstorms.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Pereira ◽  
A. M. Ramos ◽  
J. L. Zêzere ◽  
R. M. Trigo ◽  
J. M. Vaquero

Abstract. According to the DISASTER database the 20–28 December 1909 event was the hydro-geomorphologic event with the highest number of flood and landslide cases that occurred in Portugal in the period 1865–2010 (Zêzere et al., 2014). This event also caused important social impacts over the Spanish territory, especially in the Douro Basin, having triggered the highest floods in more than 100 years at the river's mouth in the city of Oporto. This work has a dual purpose: (i) to characterize the spatial distribution and social impacts of the December 1909 hydro-geomorphologic DISASTER event over Portugal and Spain; (ii) to analyse the meteorological conditions that triggered the event and the spatial distribution of the precipitation anomalies. Social impacts that occurred in Portugal were obtained from the Disaster database (Zêzere et al., 2014) whereas the data collection for Spain was supported by the systematic analysis of Spanish daily newspapers. In addition, the meteorological conditions that triggered the event are analysed using the 20th Century Reanalysis data set from NOAA and precipitation data from Iberian meteorological stations. The Iberian Peninsula was spatially affected during this event along the SW-NE direction spanning from Lisbon, Santarém, Oporto, and Guarda (in Portugal), to Salamanca, Valladolid, Zamora, Orense, León, and Palencia (in Spain). In Iberia, 134 DISASTER cases were recorded (130 flood cases; 4 landslides cases) having caused 89 casualties (57 due to floods and 32 due to landslides) and a further total of 3876 affected people, including fatalities, injured, missing, evacuated, and homeless people. This event was associated with outstanding precipitation registered at Guarda (Portugal) on 22 December 1909 and unusual meteorological conditions characterized by the presence of a deep low-pressure system located over the NW Iberian Peninsula with a stationary frontal system striking the western Iberian Peninsula. The presence of an upper-level jet (250 hPa) and low-level jet (900 hPa) located SW–NE oriented towards Iberia along with upper-level divergence and lower-level convergence favoured large-scale precipitation. Finally, associated with these features it is possible to state that this extreme event was clearly associated with the presence of an elongated Atmospheric River, crossing the entire northern Atlantic Basin and providing a continuous supply of moisture that contributed to enhance precipitation. This work contributes to a comprehensive and systematic synoptic evaluation of the second most deadly hydro-geomorphologic DISASTER event that has occurred in Portugal since 1865 and will help to better understand the meteorological system that was responsible for triggering the event.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (40) ◽  
pp. 617-656
Author(s):  
Mohammed S. Mahan ◽  
Ghassan Muslim Hamza

       Babylon during Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) was a great city. It had been a large city since Old Babylonian times, but Nebuchadnezzar’s expansion of the city and large-scale rebuilding of important buildings with good baked brick instead of the traditional unbaked mudbrick created something exceptional. Babylon now was larger than Nineveh had been and larger than any of the cities in the known world. The political and economic base for this development was of course that it was the centre of the Neo-Babylonian empire created by Nebuchadnezzar’s father Nabopolassar (625–605 BC) and succeeding the Neo Assyrian empire as the main political entity in the Middle East.         An attempt for the first time to bring together the main results of the German excavations in Babylon with the main results from the Iraqi excavations there and thereby make use of the available cuneiform documentation and a selected use of the best of the classical tradition. With the help of a GIS software (QGIS) and a BIM program (ArchiCAD) the use of satellite images and aerial photos combined with inspection on the site, the historical development of the site has been studied and a digital research model of Babylon for different periods of the city’s history has been created.          Only main buildings and constructions have been considered and placed in the appropriate historical and archaeological context. Part 1 includes some information about the historical development of buildings and nature in Babylon, the rivers and groundwater in Baybylon, as well as basics about the building materials used in Babylon. Part 2 discuss the city walls and city gates, introductory matters about the history, excavation and other documentations of the walls and gates. The chapter also includes presentation of the walls and gates during Nabopolassar followed by a detailed discussion of the walls and gates during Nebuchadnezzar. The Ištar gate and the area around it with the different levels and the upper level glazed decoration have been treated separately. Detailed interpretations about the palaces, development of the main traditional South Palace and the new constructed North are discussed in part 3. Reasonable suggestions for the Hanging Gardens in the North Palace have be provided.          The temples are discussed in part 4 detailing the Marduk temple and the zikkurrat. The historical development of the four temples reconstructed on the site in Babylon on their old foundations, i.e. Nabû, Ištar, Ašratum, and Ninmaḫ temples, is discussed with indication which levels have been used for the reconstructions. The historical development of the other excavated temples, i.e. the Ninurta and Išḫara temples, are discussed in a similar way. Attention will be paid to the remains of wall decorations in the temples.  


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Στυλιανός Κυριάκου

The scope of this PhD thesis is to pΙopose a set of improvements to existingshape design-optimization methods in fluid dynamiοs based on EvolutionaryΑlgorithms (EAs) and demonstrate their effiοienοy in real-world applications.Though the proposed method and the developed EA-based software are bothgeneriο, this thesis foοuses on applicatiοns in the fields of hydrau1ic andthermal turbomaοhines. With the proposed a1gorithmic variants, theoptimization turn-around time is notiοeably reduοed with respeοt to that ofοonventional (reference, background) methods. Though the latter areοomputationally expensive, with the proposed add-ons, they becomeaffordable even for large-scale industrial applications.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. I1RSJ3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Mosdzien ◽  
Martin Enneking ◽  
Alexander Hehn ◽  
Daniel Grates ◽  
Peter Jeschke

Due to the increasing demand for higher efficiencies of centrifugal compressors, numerical optimization methods are becoming more and more relevant in the design process. To identify the beneficial features of a numerical optimized compressor design, this paper analyses the influence of arbitrary blade surfaces on the loss generation in a transonic centrifugal compressor. The paper therefore focuses on an analysis of the secondary flow development within the impeller blade passages. To do this, steady simulations were performed on both a baseline and an optimized blade design. Two distinct design features of the optimized compressor stage were identified, which lead to a more homogenous impeller exit flow and thus to an increase in total-to-static efficiency of 1.76% points: the positive lean in the near-tip region and the positive blade curvature in the rear part of the optimized impeller. Furthermore, through extensive experimental investigations conducted on a large scale test rig it has been possible to prove the particular impeller outflow characteristics of the baseline compressor stage.


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