Fuzzy Programming Approach to a Multi-Objective Fuzzy Stochastic Routing and Siting Hazardous Wastes

The aim of the research article is not only to propose a solution procedure to solve multi-objective fuzzy stochastic programming problem by using genetic-algorithm-based fuzzy programming method, but also to apply the computational techniques for transportation of the hazardous waste materials. In this article, routing and siting problems for nuclear hazardous waste material are studied and solved. The amount of waste materials generated in the nuclear reactors follows normal distribution. The two considered objective functions are about route selection which includes minimum travel time and minimum number of houses along the way, taking the safety measures into consideration. A multi-objective fuzzy stochastic mathematical model is formulated with the above mentioned objective functions and the route selection as the constraints. The proposed solution procedure is illustrated by a numerical example and a case study.

“A new approach for the Classification of Advanced Vehicles in Transportation Systems”

Automated vehicles represent one of the most active research topic in different engineering fields in the recent years; in particular, transportation systems theory, mathematical modeling, informatics and electronics are all involved in the development of more efficient, accurate and error resilient systems regarding this topic. For modeling purpose, it is useful to introduce a vehicle classification, but the current 6 SAE levels are too detailed, without sharp borders in some case, to be useful for practical applications; thus a 2-class meta-classification has been proposed but it seems too coarse. This paper starts from an analysis of the 6 SAE levels and of sensors developed and used in modern vehicles to establish a relationship between them; this study is useful to devise a new effective 3-class meta-classification useful to transport systems analysis involving automated vehicles.

POSTAL FLOWS AS AN INDICATOR OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF CERTAIN AREA

Traffic flows that achieve transfer of information, transport of goods and passengers at the national level, represent a picture of social and economic population activities in a certain way. Besides that, today there are various standardized parameters that can determine the particularity of the observed region by measuring. In this work assignment, authors have tried to determine if different traffic flow are mutually connected and to what extent, as well as to confirm relationship between different indicators and to point at possible connections between traffic flows and measured indicators. Knowing individual country characteristics and its place in multilateral relations in the world, gives a new frame for defining complex position of the observed region at a wider level.

Towards the Internet of Safe Postal+Things

SAFEPOST is an FP7 European project which was active from April 2012 to July 2016 with the goal of a “reuse and development of Security Knowledge assets for International Postal supply chains”, as its full title explains. SAFEPOST addressed threats to postal security by designing and experimenting a sensor network detection system including gas, radiation, Raman spectroscopy and image-based sensors. In 2015, while SAFEPOST was running, the US Postal Service and IBM suggested the idea of applying sensors to the postal infrastructure components to bring the acquired data to the next supply chain level and optimize efficiency and costs, leading to an Internet of Postal Things.In this paper we provide a perspective view on how the SAFEPOST and Internet of Postal Things approaches can be merged and generalized to supply chains involving not only postal items, but also logistic infrastructures and business processes, in order to design an Internet of Safe Postal+Things.

Visualizing international author collaboration characteristics and topic burst on transportation management: A bibliometric analysis

Background: Whether the international author collaboration and keywords on the topic of transportation management has been changed in the last several decades remains unclear. Along with the big data and API(allocation programming interface) emerged as a field of research with increasing attention being paid to it by scientific researchers and a rapid increase in related literature being reported using the bibliometric analysis, the international author collaboration and keywords should be explored to analyze the current state of research, including publication outputs, in-depth collaboration characteristics and keyword topics of transportation management research.Methods: The authors collected two published papers in Medline library and downloaded their 206 similar articles without duplication since 1977. Various statistical techniques and bibliometric measures were employed, including publication growth analysis; journal distribution; and collaboration network analysis at the author country/area collaboration level. The visualization maps of international author collaboration and burst terms were drawn on Google maps using social network analysis(SNA) and cluster analysis. Gini coefficient(GC) was applied to measure inequality of density indices among clusters.Results: A total of 208 bibliographic records on transportation management were collected. The earliest paper was published in 1977, with the number of papers sharply rising at the inflection point of the year 2014. We found that (1) the most number of papers on the topic of transportation management are from the U.S.( 43,27.04%), Spain(21,13.21%), and China(18, 11.32%); (2) the most linked keywords are organization & administration, analysis, education, and statistics & numerical data, and trends; (3) keyword networks presents lower GC that author collaborations among their respective clusters. Conclusions: The collaboration of international authors on transportation management is not tight and stable. The focus of research topics on transportation management is centralized(Gini=0.48) more than that of author collaboration(Gini=0.33). Our study might provide a potential guide for future research on the topic of transportation management.

The effects of interest rates on the valuation of highway infrastructure assets

The discounted value of cash flows of assets is negatively related to interest rates (i.e., the discount rate effect). However, economic activity is positively related to interest rates and positively related to the cash flows of assets with tariffs that can be adjusted to manage demand such as adjustable-rate toll roads, but uncorrelated to assets that do not bear demand risk such as non-toll roads (i.e., the cash flow effect). This effect arises in some types of assets from: (i) the positive correlation between economic activity and demand for the infrastructure assets; and (ii) the positive correlation between economic activity and inflation. We find that the cash flow effect dominates the discount rate effect for assets with tariffs that can be adjusted to manage demand and, therefore, the value of these assets increases in periods of economic expansion. Nevertheless, the opposite occurs for assets that do not bear demand risk.

Developing a route filtering system for street network development by integrating GIS and space syntax: a case study from tehran, Iran

Throughout the urban development process over the last seven decades in Tehran, Iran many self-generated neighbourhoods have developed, in which the majority of the residents are low-income families. The main spatial attribute of these deprived neighbourhoods in space syntax terms is spatial isolation from the surrounding, more affluent areas, which is accompanied by inadequate urban infrastructure and a lack of accessibility and permeability. This paper discusses a method of developing a route filtering system for identifying the most suitable streets for the creation of a pedestrian-friendly network, using an example of a deprived area, in order to integrate it with the surrounding urban fabric. The theory of ‘Natural Movement’ formed the basis of the research, the spatial pattern being analysed through Space Syntax using Depthmap software and GIS. The results showed that it is possible to identify the underlying spatial pattern using this approach and this could form a very cost effective basis for developing a pedestrian friendly street network, in order to release the deprived area from its spatial isolation.

Absolute point algorithm for solving unbalanced fuzzy transportation problem

In real time situations, the total availability of goods or product may be more or less than the actual market demand and the unbalanced transportation situation arise more commonly. Such unbalanced Transportation Problems (TP) are solved by introducing dummy source or destination which do not exist in reality. The optimal allocation involves cells from such dummy source or destination and the allocated number of quantities are held back at one or more origins. The paper aims to propose an algorithm based on Absolute Points to solve unbalanced TP under fuzzy environment. The proposed algorithm is advantageous than the existing algorithms in such a way that it provides the added information of transporting the excess availability from dummy supply point to appropriate destination to meet future demands at minimum cost. Finally, by virtue of the proposed algorithm an example is done to illustrate the practicality and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Optimization of EDM Process Parameter for MRR and SR of 17- 4 PH Steel Using Response Surface Methodology

In the present work, an attempt has been made for material removal rate and surface roughness by response surface optimization techniques in Electrical discharge machining. Electrical discharge machining, commonly known as EDM, is a process that is used to remove metal through the action of an electrical discharge of short duration and high current density between the work piece and too. This work presents the results of a mathematical investigation carried out to the effects of machining parameters such as current, pulse on time, pulse off time and lift time on material removal rate and surface roughness in electrical discharge machining of 17-4 PH steel by using copper electrode. Response surface methodology and ANOVA techniques are used for data analysis to solve the multi-response optimization. To validate the optimum levels of the parameter, confirmation run was performed by setting the parameters at optimum levels. Material Removal Rate during the process has been taken as productivity estimate with the objective to maximize it. With an intention of minimizing surface roughness is been considered as most important output parameter. It is found that the good agreement of that current is most significant parameter for material removal rate and less for surface roughness followed by pulse on time and lift time.

Solving k-obnoxious facility location problem on a plane

In this paper k-obnoxious facility location problem has been modeled as a pure planner location problem. Area restriction concept has been incorporated by inducting a convex polygon in the constraints set. A linear programming iterative algorithm for k- obnoxious facility locations has been developed. An upper bound has been incorporated in the algorithm to get the optimal solution. Also the concept of upper bound has reduced the number of linear programming problems to solved in the algorithm. Rectilinear distance norm has been considered as the distance measure as it is more appropriate to the various realistic situations.