Typical task in process design is to determine the configuration of a separation sequence. When dealing with multicomponent mixtures, the number of possible separation methods, their combinations and process structures to be screened is huge as well as the work involved. The method used, case-based reasoning (CBR), uses existing design cases stored in the database for solving new separation pro...

Given a set X containing n distinct elements, and given a number 1 i n, we would like to nd the element whose rank in X is exactly i, i.e., the element of X larger than exactly i 1 elements of X and smaller than the other n i elements of X. In particular we are interested cases where i = n for some 0 < < 1. The median of X is the dn=2e-th element. Improving a long standing result of Sch onhage...

In the software development process, testing is one of the most human intensive steps. Many researchers try to automate test case generation to reduce the manual labor of this step. Negative selection is a famous algorithm in the field of Artificial Immune System (AIS) and many different applications has been developed using its idea. In this paper we have designed a new algorithm based on nega...

This article shows how statistical matching methods can be used to select ‘‘most similar’’ cases for qualitative analysis. I first offer a methodological justification for research designs based on selecting most similar cases. I then discuss the applicability of existing matching methods to the task of selecting most similar cases and propose adaptations to meet the unique requirements of qual...

Vendor selection decisions are complicated by the fact that various conflicting multi-objective factors must be considered in the decision making process. The problem of vendor selection becomes still more compli-cated with the inclusion of incremental discount pricing schedule. Such hard combinatorial problems when solved using meta heuristics produce near optimal solutions. This paper propose...