This paper presents a multi-criteria vehicle routing problem with soft time windows (VRPSTW) to minimize fleet cost, routes cost, and violation of soft time windows penalty. In this case, the fleet is heterogeneous. The VRPSTW consists of a number of constraints in which vehicles are allowed to serve customers out of the desirable time window by a penalty. It is assumed that this relaxation aff...

In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model that studies the contract design problem of a third party logistics buyer when he is faced with a third party logistics provider and the quality of service and the cost of providing the service are private information to the latter. We apply the Revelation Principle to our analysis and characterise the optimal contract. We show that the contract ...

Global optimization algorithms (e.g., simulated annealing, genetic, and particle swarm) have been gaining popularity in biomechanics research, in part due to advances in parallel computing. To date, such algorithms have only been applied to small- or medium-scale optimization problems (<100 design variables). This study evaluates the applicability of a parallel particle swarm global optimizatio...

In this work, we study a unilateral contact problem with non local friction of Coulombbetween a locking material and a rigid foundation. In the first step , we present the mathematicalmodel for a static process, we establish the variational formulation in the form of a variationalinequality and we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution. In the second step, usingthe penalty method we...

At depots with refined oil shortage, arranging a reasonable distribution scheme limited supply affects operation costs, demand satisfaction rate of gasoline stations (hereafter, ‘station satisfaction’), and overtime penalty. This study considers the problem shortages using multi-objective optimisation approach from perspective decision makers marketing companies. The modelling solving process i...

ÐIn this paper we review the theoretical and empirical literature on the cost structure of the provision of intercity highway transportation and specify and estimate our own cost functions. We develop a full cost model which identi®es the key cost components and then estimate costs component by component: user costs, infrastructure costs, time and congestion costs, noise costs, accident costs, ...

Lyapunov drift is a powerful tool for optimizing stochastic queueing networks subject to stability. However, the most convenient drift conditions often provide results in terms of a time average expectation, rather than a pure time average. This paper provides an extended drift-plus-penalty result that ensures stability with desired time averages with probability 1. The analysis uses the law of...

This paper uses a penalty guided strategy based on an artificial bee colony algorithm (PGBC) to solve the redundancy allocation problem (RAP) in reliability series–parallel systems. The penalty strategy was designed to eliminate the equalities in constraints and formulate new objective operators which guarantee feasibility within a reasonable execution time. The PGBC is used to deal with two ki...

In this approach, the Left ventricular assist pump for patients with left ventricular failure isused. The failure of the left ventricle is the most common heart disease during these days. Inthis article, a State feedback controller method is used to optimize the efficiency of a samplingpump current. Particle Swarm Algorithm, which is a set of rules to update the position andvelocity, is applied...