An Automatic Heuristic Design Approach for Seru Scheduling Problem with Resource Conflicts

In current environments, production systems need the ability of quick response to face the volatile markets. Seru production systems, as a new mode of the production system, have the advantages of quick response, high flexibility, and high efficiency. Seru scheduling, which refers to constructing serus with an exact sequence in limited workspace, is an important decision problem in the operational management of seru production systems and can reflect the reconfiguration nature of seru production systems. This study investigates a seru scheduling problem with resource conflicts, whose objective is to minimize the makespan. An automatic heuristic design approach that combines a genetic programming algorithm and structure similarity-based operators is proposed. Comparative experiments are conducted with human-made rules, basic genetic programming, genetic programming-based algorithm, and with some state-of-the-art scheduling algorithms. The results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

A Comparison of Vulnerability Risks and Conservation Perceptions between Mariculture, Fishery and Ecotourism Livelihood Groups in a Multi-Use MPA in Indonesia

Different livelihoods have different vulnerability risks and influences on the management of marine protected areas (MPAs). This research aimed to compare the seasonal, trend and shock livelihood vulnerability indicators (LVIs) of three dominant livelihood groups and the groups’ perceptions towards supporting MPA conservation efforts. The Anambas Archipelago MPA was selected as the study site. A total of 66 respondents from the three major groups were selected using stratified random sampling and interviewed using a questionnaire containing 14 LVIs. The responses were standardised and aggregated using functional relationships. The groups’ perceptions were determined using frequency distribution and thematic analyses (NVIVO 10). The LVI composite values showed that fishers were the most vulnerable (0.65), followed by fish farmers (0.62) and ecotourism operators (0.47). Fishers and fish farmers expressed high vulnerability due to their dependency on the coastal resources. The ecotourism operators had low vulnerability due to their lower dependency on natural resources, smaller impacts from seasonal weather, low involvement in resource conflicts and greater political support. The three groups supported the MPA regimes despite differences in their knowledge of the MPA restrictions on their livelihood practices. The study’s findings provide key alternative strategies to address the vulnerability risks of the three major groups and to increase their support for conservation goals in similar MPAs.

Hydro-Technologies of Mehrgarh, Baluchistan and Indus Valley Civilizations, Punjab, Pakistan (ca. 7000–1500 BC)

Weather and climate have been participating in an imperative function in both the expansion and crumple of mankind civilizations diagonally across the globe ever since the prehistoric eras. The Neolithic Mehrgarh (ca. 7000–2500 BC) and Balochistan and Indus Valley civilizations (ca. 2500–1500 BC), in Sindh Province in Pakistan, have been the spotlight of explorations to historians, anthropologists, and archeologists in terms of their origin, development, and collapse. However, very rare consideration has been given previously to the role of weather and climate, sanitation, and wastewater technologies in highlighting the lessons of these formerly well-developed ancient metropolitan civilizations. This study presents an existing climate of the archaeological sites, sanitation, and wastewater technologies to recognize the different elements that influenced the evolution of the civilization mystery. In addition, it is recommended that the weather and climate conditions in southwest Asia were the foremost controlling element in resolving the destiny of the Indus and Mehrgarh civilizations. Furthermore, the rural tradition was mostly adapted by the increasing rate of western depressions (winter rains), as well as monsoon precipitation in the region. The factors that affected the climate of both civilizations with the passage of time might be population growth, resource conflicts, technological advancement, industrial revolution, Aryan invasion, deforestation, migration, disasters, and sociocultural advancement. The communities residing in both civilizations had well developed agriculture, sanitation, water management, wells, baths, toilets, dockyards, and waterlogging systems and were the master of the water art.

Application of an Encoding Revision Algorithm in Overlapping Coalition Formation

Overlapping coalition formation is a very active research field in multi-agent systems (MAS). In overlapping coalition, each agent can participate in different coalitions corresponding to multiple tasks at the same time. As each agent has limited resources, resource conflicts will occur. In order to resolve resource conflicts, we develop an improved encoding revision algorithm in this paper which can revise an invalid two-dimensional binary encoding into a valid one by checking the encoding for each row. To verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, differential evolution was used as the experimental platform and compared with Zhang et al. The experimental results show that the algorithm in this paper is superior to Zhang et al. in both solution quality and encoding revision time.

Application of an Encoding Revision Algorithm in Overlapping Coalition Formation

Overlapping coalition formation is a very active research field in multi-agent systems (MAS). In overlapping coalition, each agent can participate in different coalitions corresponding to multiple tasks at the same time. As each agent has limited resources, resource conflicts will occur. In order to resolve resource conflicts, we develop an improved encoding revision algorithm in this paper which can revise an invalid two-dimensional binary encoding into a valid one by checking the encoding for each row. To verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, differential evolution was used as the experimental platform and compared with Zhang et al. The experimental results show that the algorithm in this paper is superior to Zhang et al. in both solution quality and encoding revision time.

Attention control in a demanding dynamic time-sharing environment: An eye-tracking study

In this study, we examined different models of cognitive control in dynamic time-sharing situations. We investigated attentional allocation by registering participants’ eye movements while they performed a new time-sharing task that forced them to solve resource conflicts between subtasks through prioritization. Participants were monitoring four subtasks each requiring different amounts of visual attention and response frequencies. Participants’ attention allocation was operationalized in terms of the time spent dwelling on subtasks, the rate they visually sampled the tasks, and the duration of dwells. Additionally, the accuracy of responses and efficiency of time-sharing were estimated. In Experiment 1, we studied adaptation to a time-sharing environment in which priority order of the subtasks was kept constant from trial to trial. We found that the participants sampled the most important subtasks more frequently, spent more time on them, and shifted their gaze earlier to them than to less important subtasks. That is, they allocated their attention according to the subtask priorities. In Experiment 2, subtask priorities changed from trial to trial. Despite the higher demands of the constantly changing situation, participants again adapted to the varying priorities of the subtasks almost instantly. Our results suggest that performance in complex and dynamic time-sharing situations is not managed by a system relying on liberal resource allocation policies and gradual learning. Instead, the participants’ rapid adaptation is more consistent with tighter executive and authoritative control and intelligent use of prioritization information.