scholarly journals An application of a genetic algorithm to retail staff scheduling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Khashayardoust
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Branch And Bound ◽  
Programming Approach ◽  
Optimal Solutions ◽  
Staff Scheduling ◽  
Linear Integer Programming ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
The Right ◽  
Real World Problems

Staff scheduling has received increasing attention over the past few years because of its widespread use, economic significance and difficulty of solution. For most organizations, the ability to have the right staff on duty at the right time is a critically important factor when attempting to satisfy their customers' requirements. The purpose of this study is to develop a genetic algorithm (GA) for the retail staff scheduling problem, and investigate its effectiveness. The proposed GA is compared with the conventional, linear integer programming approach. The GA is tested on a set of six real-world problems. Three are tested using a range of population size and mutation rate parameters. Then all six are solved with the best of those parameters. The results are compared to those obtained with the branch-and-bound algorithm. It is shown that GA can produce near-optimal solutions for all of the problems, and for half of them, it is more successful than the branch-and-bound method.

scholarly journals An application of a genetic algorithm to retail staff scheduling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Khashayardoust
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Branch And Bound ◽  
Programming Approach ◽  
Optimal Solutions ◽  
Staff Scheduling ◽  
Linear Integer Programming ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
The Right ◽  
Real World Problems

Staff scheduling has received increasing attention over the past few years because of its widespread use, economic significance and difficulty of solution. For most organizations, the ability to have the right staff on duty at the right time is a critically important factor when attempting to satisfy their customers' requirements. The purpose of this study is to develop a genetic algorithm (GA) for the retail staff scheduling problem, and investigate its effectiveness. The proposed GA is compared with the conventional, linear integer programming approach. The GA is tested on a set of six real-world problems. Three are tested using a range of population size and mutation rate parameters. Then all six are solved with the best of those parameters. The results are compared to those obtained with the branch-and-bound algorithm. It is shown that GA can produce near-optimal solutions for all of the problems, and for half of them, it is more successful than the branch-and-bound method.

Optimization of Heave Motions for a Four Column Semi-Submersible Based on Genetic Algorithm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suji Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Global Optimization ◽  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Parametric Modelling ◽  
Optimal Solutions ◽  
Global Optimization Algorithm ◽  
The Past ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Aided Design

Semi-submersible is designed with low heave motions compared with conventional ships by utilizing the cancelation effects between pontoons and columns. During the past years, continuous efforts have been devoted to reducing the heave amplitudes considering utilizing dry-tree system. Different concepts of semi-submersible have been proposed with favorable heave response. Deep draft semi-submersibles have been proved to be efficient in reducing the heave motions, and the damper structures under the pontoon may also reduce the heave responses significantly. Those concepts are beyond the conventional semi-submersible design, which may bring high costs for fabrication and installations. During computer-aided design and analysis, optimization algorithms are used to search for the optimal hull configuration. However, due to the restrictions of computer capacities, the global optimization algorithm, in some cases, have difficulties in finding out the optimal solutions without the aid from engineering experience. In this paper, the geometry of a ring-pontoon four-column semi-submersible is generated by parametric modelling. The heave transfer functions at center of gravity are calculated using WADAM. Genetic algorithm is used to find the most favorable heave responses. In the end, the parameters that influence the heave motions are summarized and discussed.

COMMONWEALTH Forum: The Politics of Science or the Science of Politics

Commonwealth ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Arway
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
The Past ◽  
Difference Of Opinion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Environmental Agency ◽  
Laws And Regulations

The challenges of including factual information in public policy and political discussions are many. The difficulties of including scientific facts in these debates can often be frustrating for scientists, politicians and policymakers alike. At times it seems that discussions involve different languages or dialects such that it becomes a challenge to even understand one another’s position. Oftentimes difference of opinion leads to laws and regulations that are tilted to the left or the right. The collaborative balancing to insure public and natural resource interests are protected ends up being accomplished through extensive litigation in the courts. In this article, the author discusses the history of environmental balancing during the past three decades from the perspective of a field biologist who has used the strength of our policies, laws and regulations to fight for the protection of our Commonwealth’s aquatic resources. For the past 7 years, the author has taken over the reins of “the most powerful environmental agency in Pennsylvania” and charted a course using science to properly represent natural resource interests in public policy and political deliberations.

Accelerating Agricultural Growth—Is Irrigation Institutional Reform Necessary? (Distinguishedl Lecture)

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (4I) ◽  
pp. 399-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Mellor
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rates ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Residual Effect ◽  
Agricultural Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Economic Growth Rates

The right to the flow of income from water is vigorously pursued, protected, and fought over in any arid part of the world. Pakistan is of course no exception. Reform of irrigation institutions necessarily changes the rights to water, whether it be those of farmers, government, or government functionaries. Those perceived rights may be explicit and broadly accepted, or simply takings that are not even considered legitimate. Nevertheless they will be fought over. Pakistan has a long history of proposals for irrigation reform, little or none being implemented, except as isolated pilot projects. Thus, to propose major changes in irrigation institutions must be clearly shown to have major benefits to justify the hard battles that must be fought and the goodwill of those who might win those battles for reform. Proponents of irrigation institution reform have always argued the necessity of the reforms and the large gains to be achieved. Perhaps, however, those arguments have not been convincing. This paper will briefly outline the failed attempts at irrigation reform to provide an element of reality to the discussion. It will then proceed to make the case of the urgency of reform in a somewhat different manner to the past. Finally, current major reform proposals will be presented. This paper approaches justification of irrigation reform by focusing on the agricultural growth rate. It does so because that is the critical variable influencing poverty rates and is a significant determinant of over-all economic growth rates. The paper decomposes growth rates and suggests a residual effect of deterioration of the irrigation system that is large and calls for policy and institutional reform. The data are notional, suggesting the usefulness of the approach and paves the way for more detailed empirical analysis and enquiry for the future.

Does the Injunction Gap Violate Implementers’ Fair Trial Rights Under the ECHR?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon E Dijkman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
European Convention ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Federal Supreme ◽  
Validity Of A Patent

Abstract Germany is one of few jurisdictions with a bifurcated patent system, under which infringement and validity of a patent are established in separate proceedings. Because validity proceedings normally take longer to conclude, it can occur that remedies for infringement are imposed before a decision on the patent’s validity is available. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the ‘injunction gap’ and has been the subject of increasing criticism over the past years. In this article, I examine the injunction gap from the perspective of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I find that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights interpreting this provision supports criticism of the injunction gap, because imposing infringement remedies with potentially far-reaching consequences before the validity of a patent has been established by a court of law arguably violates defendants’ right to be heard. Such reliance on the patent office’s grant decision is no longer warranted in the light of contemporary invalidation rates. I conclude that the proliferation of the injunction gap should be curbed by an approach to a stay of proceedings which is in line with the test for stays as formulated by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court. Under this test, courts should stay infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court or the EPO’s Board of Appeal have ruled on the validity of a patent whenever it is more likely than not that it will be invalidated.

The Specter of the Past: Reconstructing Conservative Historical Memory in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-362
Author(s):  
Myungji Yang
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
New Right ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Right

Through the case of the New Right movement in South Korea in the early 2000s, this article explores how history has become a battleground on which the Right tried to regain its political legitimacy in the postauthoritarian context. Analyzing disputes over historiography in recent decades, this article argues that conservative intellectuals—academics, journalists, and writers—play a pivotal role in constructing conservative historical narratives and building an identity for right-wing movements. By contesting what they viewed as “distorted” leftist views and promoting national pride, New Right intellectuals positioned themselves as the guardians of “liberal democracy” in the Republic of Korea. Existing studies of the Far Right pay little attention to intellectual circles and their engagement in civil society. By examining how right-wing intellectuals appropriated the past and shaped triumphalist national imagery, this study aims to better understand the dynamics of ideational contestation and knowledge production in Far Right activism.

scholarly journals A Method for Integration of Preferences to a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Using Ordinal Multi-Criteria Classification

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Alejandro Castellanos-Alvarez ◽  
Laura Cruz-Reyes ◽  
Eduardo Fernandez ◽  
Nelson Rangel-Valdez ◽  
Claudia Gómez-Santillán ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Selective Pressure ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Multiple Objective ◽  
Objective Functions ◽  
Multi Objective ◽  
Imperfect Knowledge ◽  
Real World Problems

Most real-world problems require the optimization of multiple objective functions simultaneously, which can conflict with each other. The environment of these problems usually involves imprecise information derived from inaccurate measurements or the variability in decision-makers’ (DMs’) judgments and beliefs, which can lead to unsatisfactory solutions. The imperfect knowledge can be present either in objective functions, restrictions, or decision-maker’s preferences. These optimization problems have been solved using various techniques such as multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). This paper proposes a new MOEA called NSGA-III-P (non-nominated sorting genetic algorithm III with preferences). The main characteristic of NSGA-III-P is an ordinal multi-criteria classification method for preference integration to guide the algorithm to the region of interest given by the decision-maker’s preferences. Besides, the use of interval analysis allows the expression of preferences with imprecision. The experiments contrasted several versions of the proposed method with the original NSGA-III to analyze different selective pressure induced by the DM’s preferences. In these experiments, the algorithms solved three-objectives instances of the DTLZ problem. The obtained results showed a better approximation to the region of interest for a DM when its preferences are considered.

scholarly journals Sudden Unexpected Death Associated with Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy: Study of the Cardiac Conduction System

Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1323
Author(s):  
Giulia Ottaviani ◽  
Graziella Alfonsi ◽  
Simone G. Ramos ◽  
L. Maximilian Buja
Keyword(s):  
Fibromuscular Dysplasia ◽  
Ventricular Myocardium ◽  
Conduction System ◽  
Cardiac Conduction ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cardiac Conduction System ◽  
Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy ◽  
Unexpected Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Right

A retrospective study was conducted on pathologically diagnosed arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) from consecutive cases over the past 34 years (n = 1109). The anatomo-pathological analyses were performed on 23 hearts diagnosed as ACM (2.07%) from a series of 1109 suspected cases, while histopathological data of cardiac conduction system (CCS) were available for 15 out of 23 cases. The CCS was removed in two blocks, containing the following structures: Sino-atrial node (SAN), atrio-ventricular junction (AVJ) including the atrio-ventricular node (AVN), the His bundle (HB), the bifurcation (BIF), the left bundle branch (LBB) and the right bundle branch (RBB). The ACM cases consisted of 20 (86.96%) sudden unexpected cardiac death (SUCD) and 3 (13.04%) native explanted hearts; 16 (69.56%) were males and 7 (30.44%) were females, ranging in age from 5 to 65 (mean age ± SD, 36.13 ± 16.06) years. The following anomalies of the CCS, displayed as percentages of the 15 ACM SUCD cases in which the CCS has been fully analyzed, have been detected: Hypoplasia of SAN (80%) and/or AVJ (86.67%) due to fatty-fibrous involvement, AVJ dispersion and/or septation (46.67%), central fibrous body (CFB) hypoplasia (33.33%), fibromuscular dysplasia of SAN (20%) and/or AVN (26.67%) arteries, hemorrhage and infarct-like lesions of CCS (13.33%), islands of conduction tissue in CFB (13.33%), Mahaim fibers (13.33%), LBB block by fibrosis (13.33%), AVN tongue (13.33%), HB duplicity (6.67%%), CFB cartilaginous meta-hyperplasia (6.67%), and right sided HB (6.67%). Arrhythmias are the hallmark of ACM, not only from the fatty-fibrous disruption of the ventricular myocardium that accounts for reentrant ventricular tachycardia, but also from the fatty-fibrous involvement of CCS itself. Future research should focus on application of these knowledge on CCS anomalies to be added to diagnostic criteria or at least to be useful to detect the patients with higher sudden death risks.

Weighting of Votes in an International Assembly

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1192-1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis B. Sohn
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
World Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Small Countries ◽  
World Organization ◽  
The Right

All the plans for future world organization, whether they envisage a world government or are limited to providing agencies for better collaboration between the peoples of the world, are built around two main conceptions—a small council and a larger assembly. But the different plans disagree widely upon the powers and the make-up of these bodies. The purpose of the present article is to analyze the difficulties relating to the structure of the larger body, the assembly, and to outline a tentative method for surmounting them.The structure of the different international organizations existing in the past was based on two principles: equality of representation and unanimity. That meant, first of all, that in the assemblies of nations the United States of America (population, 131 million) and Luxemburg (population, 300 thousand) had the right of equal representation. For instance, in the Conferences of the International Labor Organization, both countries have been equally entitled to appoint four delegates. Secondly, when an international assembly has tried to arrive at a Decision, not only the largest but also the smallest country could block such a Decision by casting a negative vote. While sometimes a little country has been forcibly persuaded to abandon its opposition, in many instances small countries have been able to frustrate the efforts of international assemblies and conferences otherwise unanimous.

scholarly journals Chronic (Rasmussen’s) Encephalitis in an Adult

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Wennberg ◽  
Sukriti Nag ◽  
Mary-Pat McAndrews ◽  
Andres M. Lozano ◽  
Richard Farb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Right Visual Field ◽  
Loss Of Consciousness ◽  
Mild Head Injury ◽  
Partial Seizures ◽  
Complex Partial Seizures ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rasmussen’S Encephalitis ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right

A 24-year-old woman was referred because of incompletely-controlled complex partial seizures. Her seizures had started at age 21, after a mild head injury with brief loss of consciousness incurred in a biking accident, and were characterized by a sensation of bright flashing lights in the right visual field, followed by numbness and tingling in the right foot, spreading up the leg and to the arm, ultimately involving the entire right side, including the face. Occasionally they spread further to involve right facial twitching with jerking of the right arm and leg, loss of awareness and, at the onset of her epilepsy, rare secondarily generalized convulsions. Seizure frequency averaged three to four per month. She was initially treated with phenytoin and clobazam and subsequently changed to carbamazepine 800 milligrams per day. She also complained that her right side was no longer as strong as her left and that it was also numb, especially the leg, but felt that this weakness had stabilized or improved slightly over the past two years.

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