Modeling the problem of locating collection areas for urban waste management. An application to the metropolitan area of Barcelona

Reverse logistics problems arising in municipal waste management are both wide-ranging and varied. The usual collection system in UE countries is composed of two phases. First, citizens leave their refuse at special collection areas where different types of waste (glass, paper, plastic, organic material) are stored in special refuse bins. Subsequently, each type of waste is collected separately and moved to its final destination (a recycling plant or refuse dump). The present study focuses on the problem of locating these collection areas. We establish the relationship between the problem, the set covering problem and the MAX-SAT problem and then go on to develop a genetic algorithm and a GRASP heuristic to, respectively, solve each formulation. Finally, the quality of the algorithms is tested in a computational experience with real instances from the metropolitan area of Barcelona, as well as a reduced set of set covering instances from the literature.     

Multi-terminal vehicle-dispatch algorithm

This paper introduces the Multi-Terminal Sweep Algorithm, a heuristic algorithm for obtaining an approximate solution to the multiple terminal vehicle-dispatch problem. The procedure determines a set of routes by which vehicles from two or more terminals can service a collection of demand points so that the total distance traveled is kept near to the minimum. This solution also satisfies constraints on the vehicle load and on the length of each route. Application of the algorithm to eleven multiple terminal vehicle-dispatch problems shows that near-optimal solutions to large-scale problems can be found in a reasonable amount of computer time.     

Vehicle routing–scheduling for municipal waste collection system under the “Keep Trash off the Ground” policy

This paper investigates the waste collection problem and characterizes the problem as a set-covering and vehicle routing problem (VRP) complicated by inter-arrival time constraints. The study proposes a bi-level optimization formulation to model the split delivery VRP with multiple trips to determine the minimum-distance route. The first stage optimally plans the collection points that cover all residential blocks. The second stage applies a heuristics method to solve the minimum vehicles used and minimum distance traveled for collecting residential waste. This research contributes to model this period VRP and to introduce the heuristics method to solve the problem efficiently. The study is important in laying the groundwork for understanding the possibility of improving the service level of municipal solid waste collection.     

Allocating a fixed cost based on data envelopment analysis and satisfaction degree

This paper uses the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique to solve the problem of allocating a fixed cost across a set of comparable decision making units (DMUs) in a fair way. It first investigates the effect of the fixed cost on each DMU and on the collection of DMUs. Next we prove that there exist some cost allocations which can make each DMU and the collection of DMUs efficient. We show that such a cost allocation is unique and equivalent to the proportional sharing method if the fixed cost allocation problem is a one-dimensional case. In a multidimensional case, the fixed cost allocations may not be unique. This paper defines the concept of satisfaction degree, and proposes a maxmin model and a corresponding algorithm to generate a unique fixed cost allocation. Finally, the proposed approach has been applied to a data set from prior literature.     

考虑差异化服务时间的多车型电动汽车路径优化与充电策略研究

在政府政策大力支持以及社会环境意识不断增长的背景下,电动汽车在物流配送行业快速普及。电动汽车参与的物流配送服务需要物流专员、电动汽车和顾客三方协作完成。因此,在传统车辆配送路径优化的基础上,车辆的多样性、充电策略、人车的匹配以及服务时间差异化等因素都会影响物流运营成本。本文提出了考虑差异化服务成本的多车型电动汽车路径优化与充电策略问题并建立了该问题的整数规划数学模型。其次,提出了混合启发式算法MCWGATS,并通过多组算例验证了算法的有效性。最后,采用多组算例分析了多车型和差异化服务时间对运营成本的影响。实验结果表明,该模型有助于物流企业提高人员、物流车辆、服务时间等资源的利用效率,降低运营成本。     

A 6/5-approximation algorithm for the maximum 3-cover problem

In the maximum cover problem, we are given a collection of sets over a ground set of elements and a positive integer w, and we are asked to compute a collection of at most w sets whose union contains the maximum number of elements from the ground set. This is a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem with applications to resource allocation. We study the simplest APX-hard variant of the problem where all sets are of size at most 3 and we present a 6/5-approximation algorithm, improving the previously best known approximation guarantee. Our algorithm is based on the idea of first computing a large packing of disjoint sets of size 3 and then augmenting it by performing simple local improvements.     

Designing optimal routing strategies for a manufacturer: A case study

A study of the vehicle transportation system for a manufacturer is presented. An algorithm based on a dynamic programming model is developed so as to find the optimal transportation arrangements referring to the composition of the vehicles as well as the routing of these vehicles. The algorithm is run under the current condition as well as under a number of different scenarios. It is shown the algorithm can solve the problem with reduced computational complexity. The findings and suggestions resulting from the study can help the department manager in reviewing current operations arrangement and determining future operations arrangements.     

基于改进量子进化算法的车货供需匹配方法研究

为了提高货运供需匹配效率,建立了一种车货供需匹配数学模型,描述了车货匹配问题的目标与相关约束,对量子进化算法进行设计与改进用于对此问题求解,提出了有约束惩罚的适应度衰减方法,解决了量子群初期无强可行解时最优量子个体的选择问题,引入量子群成熟度对量子进化算法的退出机制进行改进。在实验中,使用改进的量子进化算法和标准遗传进化算法进行对比,并对算法参数进行优化,实验中量子进化算法表现出更好的收敛速度,准确性和稳定性,但是量子群规模存在“瓶颈问题”,更大规模的量子群对算法优化效果并不明显且需要耗费更长的计算机时间,量子旋转角增量与算法收敛速度正相关,与全局搜索能力负相关。结果表明,改进的量子进化算法可以高效地搜索到较为优秀的车货匹配方案,为车主和货主推荐较为合理的车货供需信息资源。     

Self-organizing maps in population based metaheuristic to the dynamic vehicle routing problem

We consider the dynamic vehicle routing problem (dynamic VRP). In this problem, new customer demands are received along the day. Hence, they must be serviced at their locations by a set of vehicles in real time. The approach to address the problem is a hybrid method which manipulates the self-organizing map (SOM) neural network into a population based evolutionary algorithm. The method, called memetic SOM, illustrates how the concept of intermediate structure, also called elastic net or adaptive mesh concept, provided by the original SOM can naturally be applied into a dynamic setting. The experiments show that the heuristic outperforms the approaches that were applied to the Kilby et al. 22 problems with up to 385 customers. It performs better with respect to solution quality than the ant colony algorithm MACS-VRPTW, a genetic algorithm, and a multi-agent oriented approach, with a computation time used roughly 100 times lesser.     

Multi-time scale Markov decision process approach to strategic network growth of reverse supply chains

This paper addresses a complex set of decisions that surround the growth over time of reverse supply chain networks that collect used products for reuse, refurbishment, and/or recycling by processors. The collection network growth problem is decomposed into strategic, tactical and operational problems. This paper focuses on the strategic problem which is to determine how to allocate capital budget resource effectively to grow the network to meet long term collection targets and collection cost constraints. We model the strategic problem as a Markov decision process which can also be posed as multi-time scale Markov decision problem. The recruitment problem in a tactical level appears as a sub-problem for the strategic model. Using dynamic programming, linear programming and Q-Learning approaches, an heuristic is implemented to solve realistically sized problems. A numerical study demonstrates that the heuristic can obtain a good solution for the large-scale problem in reasonable time which is not possible when trying to obtain the optimal solution with the exact DP approach.     

Discovering classes in microarray data using island counts

We present a new biclustering algorithm to simultaneously discover tissue classes and identify a set of genes that well-characterize these classes from DNA microarray data sets. We employ a combinatorial optimization approach where the object is to simultaneously identify an interesting set of genes and a partition of the array samples that optimizes a certain score based on a novel color island statistic. While this optimization problem is NP-complete in general, we are effectively able to solve problems of interest to optimality using a branch-and-bound algorithm. We have tested the algorithm on a 30 sample Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma data set; it was able to almost perfectly discriminate short-term survivors from long-term survivors and normal controls. Another useful feature of our method is that can easily handle missing expression data.     

A New Approximation Algorithm for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem on a Tree

This paper presents a new approximation algorithm for a vehicle routing problem on a tree-shaped network with a single depot. Customers are located on vertices of the tree, and each customer has a positive demand. Demands of customers are served by a fleet of identical vehicles with limited capacity. It is assumed that the demand of a customer is splittable, i.e., it can be served by more than one vehicle. The problem we are concerned with in this paper asks to find a set of tours of the vehicles with minimum total lengths. Each tour begins at the depot, visits a subset of the customers and returns to the depot without violating the capacity constraint. We propose a 1.35078-approximation algorithm for the problem (exactly, ), which is an improvement over the existing 1.5-approximation.     

Exact approaches for the pickup and delivery problem with loading cost

In this paper, we propose a branch-and-cut algorithm and a branch-and-price algorithm to solve the pickup and delivery problem with loading cost (PDPLC), which is a new problem derived from the classic pickup and delivery problem (PDP) by considering the loading cost in the objective function. Applications of the PDPLC arise in healthcare transportation where the objective function is customer-centric or service-based. In the branch-and-price algorithm, we devise an ad hoc label-setting algorithm to solve the pricing problem and employ the bounded bidirectional search strategy to accelerate the label-setting algorithm. The proposed algorithms were tested on a set of instances generated by a common data generator in the literature. The computational results showed that the branch-and-price algorithm outperformed the branch-and-cut algorithm by a large margin, and can solve instances with 40 requests to optimality in a reasonable time frame.     

基于改进蚁群算法的低碳车辆路径问题研究

全球气候恶化危及人类生存环境,物流运输过程中产生的大量温室气体则是祸源之一。本文考虑带有碳排放约束的车辆路径问题（VRP）,以车辆行驶里程最短和碳排放量最小为目标,构建了多目标的VRP非线性规划模型。提出了一种改进的蚁群系统算法对该模型进行求解,算法在更新路径上的蚂蚁信息素时引入了混沌扰动机制,此举能降低算法运行时陷入局部最优解的概率并有效提高算法的适应性。同时,对启发因子、状态转移概率、信息素更新等环节进行了优化设计,提高了最优路径的搜索效率。最后,数值仿真实验证明了该算法的求解表现优于同类研究常用的遗传算法和禁忌搜索算法,具有较强的全局寻优能力。在灵敏性和有效性的保证下,本研究所设计的改进蚁群算法能够较好地处理低碳车辆路径问题（LCVRP）。     

多油品供给受限下多油库被动配送车辆路径问题研究

成品油供给不足将导致加油站油品订单无法完全满足,如何安排有限油品的合理配送对保障能源供给安全至关重要。为此,本文考虑有限供给下不同客户配送的优先次序,开展配送计划、车辆调度和路径优化等油品配送网络规划活动,对多油品供给受限情况下多油库被动配送车辆路径问题（Multiple Depot Vehicle Routing Problem,MDVRP）进行深入研究。首先,文章构建了考虑需求优先等级和配送成本的多油品多油库车辆路径规划多目标优化模型。其次,采用多目标粒子群优化算法（Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization,MOPSO）对模型进行求解,以实现车辆高效调度和油品配送路径优化。最后,基于CNPC在青岛市部分油库和加油站点的数据信息,构建油品配送网络进行实证检验。算例结果显示,配送车辆路径经过优化后,生成Pareto非劣解集,配送成本显著降低,配送满足率明显提高,这也进一步验证了该模型及相关算法的可行性和有效性。     

Truck scheduling for solid waste collection in the City of Porto Alegre, Brazil

This paper considers a truck scheduling problem in the context of solid waste collection in the City of Porto Alegre, Brazil. The problem consists of designing “good” daily truck schedules over a set of previously defined collection trips, on which the trucks collect solid waste in fixed routes and empty loads in one of several operational recycling facilities in the system. These facilities are managed by cooperatives whose members are poor and not part of the mainstream economy. The main objective is to minimize the total operating and fixed truck costs. We show that the problem can be modeled as a special case of the single-depot vehicle scheduling problem, which is polynomially solvable. However, due to the social benefits of the solid waste program, it is desirable to obtain balanced assignments of collection trips unloading their cargo at the recycling facilities. We prove that the truck scheduling problem considering balanced unloading is NP-hard. A heuristic approach, incorporating an auction algorithm and a dynamic penalty method, is designed to acquire a good solution. Finally, computational experiments are conducted on real data. The results show that the heuristic approach simultaneously reduces total costs and balances the number of trips assigned to each recycling facility.     

Multiple hypernode hitting sets and smallest two-cores with targets

The multiple weighted hitting set problem is to find a subset of nodes in a hypergraph that hits every hyperedge in at least m nodes. We extend the problem to a notion of hypergraphs with so-called hypernodes and show that, for m=2, it remains fixed-parameter tractable (FPT), parameterized by the number of hyperedges. This is accomplished by a nontrivial extension of the dynamic programming algorithm for hypergraphs. The algorithm might be interesting for certain assignment problems, but here we need it as a tool to solve another problem motivated by network analysis: A d-core of a graph is a subgraph in which every vertex has at least d neighbors. We give an FPT algorithm that computes a smallest 2-core including a given set of target vertices, where the number of targets is the parameter. This FPT result is best possible in the sense that no FPT algorithm for 3-cores can be expected.     

The Knapsack Sharing Problem: An Exact Algorithm

In this paper, we propose an exact algorithm for the knapsack sharing problem. The proposed algorithm seems quite efficient in the sense that it solves quickly some large problem instances. The problem is decomposed into a series of single constraint knapsack problems; and by applying the dynamic programming and another strategy, we solve optimally the original problem. The performance of the exact algorithm is evaluated on a set of medium and large problem instances (a total of 240 problem instances). This algorithm is parallelizable and this is one of its important feature.     

Optimal RSUs placement with delay bounded message dissemination in vehicular networks

In order to transfer emergency messages from the accident site to the control center as soon as possible, the Roadside Units (RSUs) act as the most important roles in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). However, we always hope to deploy the minimum number of RSUs because of the low market penetration of VANET-enabled vehicles and the deployment cost of RSUs. This paper presents a transmission delay analysis in urban areas with IID vehicles, and then reveal the relationship between the transmission time and message dissemination distance. According to the analysis, the optimal RSUs deployment problem is formulated. We propose three heuristic greedy strategies as code methods of genetic algorithms to solve the optimal RSUs placement problem with delay bound. Simulation results show that the solutions are efficient and the time complexity is lower than those existing algorithms.     

一类网络扩张的机会约束模型与算法

在不确定环境中的机会约束下,怎样去增加一组边的容量到一个指定的瓶颈容量,而使网络瓶颈扩张的费用最小.带有随机单位扩张费用的网络瓶颈容量扩张问题,可以根据一些概率机会约束规则,列出它的机会约束规划模型的通用表达式.将网络瓶颈容量算法、随机模拟方法和遗传算法合成在一起,设计出该问题的混合智能通用算法.最后,给出数值案例.