study of collective actions is related to some of the most important issues in contemporary sociology such as cooperation, collective decision making, emergence of social norms etc. this paper in four steps presents a framework for studying collective actions. these steps are related to characteristics of collective actions (cooperation and common good), factors effecting the emergence of colle...

periodic vehicle routing problem focuses on establishing a plan of visits to clients over a given time horizon so as to satisfy some service level while optimizing the routes used in each time period. This paper presents a new effective heuristic algorithm based on data mining tools for periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP). The related results of proposed algorithm are compared with the resu...

This paper presents the study of tensile, flexural & moisture absorption properties of composites made from areca fibers, maize powder filler particles & epoxy resin. The specimens are prepared using hand lay-up techniques as per ASTM standard for different weight fractions of fiber, filler & matrix material. The specimens were tested as per ASTM standards. Experimental results showed that tens...

This paper presents three efficient approaches for solving the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem using the meta-heuristic algorithms. Mathematically, OPF is formulated as non-linear equality and inequality constrained optimization problem. The main drawback of meta-heuristic algorithm based OPF is the excessive execution time required due to the large number of load flows/power flows needed in t...

This paper presents an efficient method for the finite element assembly of high order Whitney elements. We start by reviewing the classical assembly technique and by highlighting the most time consuming part. Then, we show how this classical approach can be reformulated into a computationally efficient matrix-matrix product. We also address the global orientation problem of the vector valued ba...

In this paper, the problem of population districting in the health system of South Khorasan province has been investigated in the form of an optimization problem. Now that the districting problem is considered as a strategic matter, it is vital to obtain efficient solutions in order to implement in the system. Therefore in this study two meta-heuristic algorithms, Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO) and G...