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The design of a propeller for a high-speed craft is addressed by using a multi-objective numerical optimization approach. By combining a fast and reliable Boundary Elements Method (BEM), a viscous flow solver based on the RANSE approximation, a parametric 3D description of the blade and a genetic algorithm, the new propeller shape is designed to improve the propulsive efficiency, reduce the cavitation extension, increase the cavitation inception speed and maximize, at the same time, the ship speed. Rather than by constraining the propeller delivered thrust, indeed, the proposed procedure works together with an engine-propeller matching algorithm that, each time a new propeller is defined, identifies the achievable maximum ship speed and the resulting engine functioning point that turn in additional goals for the multi-objective optimization. A set of optimal propellers, obtained through the design by optimization based on potential flow calculations (via the Boundary Elements Method), are selected for additional viscous analyses (RANSE calculations) in order to further validate the results of the BEM calculations and provide a deeper insight into the complex flow fields of high speed propellers. Among this subset of optimal configurations, a final geometry is selected to verify the reliability of the design procedure by means of dedicated cavitation tunnel tests and full-scale measurements on a high-speed craft provided by Azimut|Benetti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeker optimization algorithm is one of the recent swarm intelligence metaheuristics for hard optimization problems. It is based on the human group search behavior and it was successfully applied to various numerical optimization problems. While the seeker optimization algorithm was proven to be successful for different specific problems, it was not properly tested on a wide set of benchmark functions. Our testing on the standard well-known set of benchmark functions shows that the seeker optimization algorithm has serious problems with some types of functions. In this paper we introduced modifications to the seeker optimization algorithm to control exploitation/exploration balance and hybridized it with elements of the firefly algorithm that improved its exploitation capabilities. The firefly algorithm alone also exhibits deficiencies. Our proposed modified and hybridized seeker optimization algorithm not only overcame shortcomings of the original algorithms, but also outperformed other state-of-the-art swarm intelligence algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] A new meta-heuristic called Grey Wolf Optimizer inspired by grey wolves is proposed. [•] The GWO algorithm is benchmarked on 29 well-known test functions. [•] The results on the unimodal functions show the superior exploitation of GWO. [•] The exploration ability of GWO is confirmed by the results on multimodal functions. [•] The results on semi-real and real problems confirm the performance of GWO in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The generation of priority vectors from pairwise comparison matrices is an essential part of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Perhaps the most popular approach for deriving the priority weights is the right eigenvalue method (REV) which was proposed by Saaty. Despite its popularity some shortcomings of the REV have been reported in literature. Among the alternative approaches one can find the statistical estimation techniques, methods founded on constrained optimization models and models based on fuzzy description of decision maker preferences. In this paper new optimization techniques for deriving priority weights are introduced. In the proposed approach, the constrained optimization models are based on the same idea which underlies the REV. The properties of the resulting prioritization techniques are studied via computer simulations. This study demonstrates that the new methods perform very well in comparison with other popular techniques known from literature. What is especially important, the new approach provides the decision maker with a meaningful index that can be used to measure consistency of his/her judgments. The new index is closely related to the well-known Saaty’s consistency index CI, but in difference to the latter, it can be applied to both reciprocal as well as nonreciprocal comparison matrices. Hence the new index can be considered as a natural extension of the CI to all types of matrices. Some additional advantages resulting from the new approach are discussed and illustrated by numerical examples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The solution of the augmented Lagrangian related system is a key ingredient of many iterative algorithms for the solution of saddle-point problems in constrained optimization with quasi-Newton methods. However, such problems are ill-conditioned when the penalty parameter tends to zero, whereas the error vanishes as . We present a new fast method based on a splitting penalty scheme to solve such problems with a judicious prediction–correction method. We prove that, due to the adapted right-hand side, the solution of the correction step only requires the approximation of operators independent of , when is taken sufficiently small. Hence, the proposed method is as cheaper as tends to zero. We apply the two-step scheme to efficiently solve the saddle-point problem with a penalty method. Indeed, that fully justifies the interest of the vector penalty-projection methods recently proposed by Angot et al. (2008) to solve the unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, for which we give the stability result and some quasi-optimal error estimates. Moreover, the numerical experiments confirm both the theoretical analysis and the efficiency of the proposed method which produces a fast splitting solution to augmented Lagrangian or penalty problems, possibly used as a suitable preconditioner to the fully coupled system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we give new results on the Alienor method of dimension reduction. This technique is used to solve multidimensional global optimization problems of type min x∈X f(x) where f is a non convex Lipschitz function and X a compact set of defined by Lipschitz constraints. The idea is to construct an α-dense curve h in the feasible set X. The global minimum of f on X is then approximated by the global minimum of f on the curve h. That is, our problem has become a one-dimensional problem which can be solved by the Piyavskii–Shubert method. Examples of these curves and numerical implementations on several test functions are given. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The league championship algorithm (LCA) is a new algorithm originally proposed for unconstrained optimization which tries to metaphorically model a League championship environment wherein artificial teams play in an artificial league for several weeks (iterations). Given the league schedule, a number of individuals, as sport teams, play in pairs and their game outcome is determined given known the playing strength (fitness value) along with the team formation (solution). Modelling an artificial match analysis, each team devises the required changes in its formation (a new solution) for the next week contest and the championship goes for a number of seasons. In this paper, we adapt LCA for constrained optimization. In particular: (1) a feasibility criterion to bias the search toward feasible regions is included besides the objective value criterion; (2) generation of multiple offspring is allowed to increase the probability of an individual to generate a better solution; (3) a diversity mechanism is adopted, which allows infeasible solutions with a promising objective value precede the feasible solutions. Performance of LCA is compared with comparator algorithms on benchmark problems where the experimental results indicate that LCA is a very competitive algorithm. Performance of LCA is also evaluated on well-studied mechanical design problems and results are compared with the results of 21 constrained optimization algorithms. Computational results signify that with a smaller number of evaluations, LCA ensures finding the true optimum of these problems. These results encourage that further developments and applications of LCA would be worth investigating in the future studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a nonmonotone filter Diagonalized Quasi-Newton Multiplier (DQMM) method for solving system of nonlinear equations. The system of nonlinear equations is transformed into a constrained nonlinear programming problem which is then solved by nonmonotone filter DQMM method. A nonmonotone criterion is used to speed up the convergence progress in some ill-conditioned cases. Under reasonable conditions, we give the global convergence properties. The numerical experiments are reported to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, by means of an active set strategy, we present a projected spectral gradient algorithm for solving large-scale bound constrained optimization problems. A nice property of the active set estimation technique is that it can identify the active set at the optimal point without requiring strict complementary condition, which is potentially used to solve degenerated optimization problems. Under appropriate conditions, we show that this proposed method is globally convergent. We also do some numerical experiments by using some bound constrained problems from CUTEr library. The numerical comparisons with SPG, TRON, and L-BFGS-B show that the proposed method is effective and promising. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper introduces a smoothing technique for a lower order penalty function for constrained optimization problems (COP). It is proved that the optimal solution to the smoothed penalty optimization problem is a -approximate optimal solution to the original optimization problem under some mild assumptions. Based on the smoothed penalty function, an algorithm for solving COP is proposed and some numerical examples are given. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a new evolutionary optimization method that is based on the science of biogeography. We propose two extensions to BBO. First, we propose a blended migration operator. Benchmark results show that blended BBO outperforms standard BBO. Second, we employ blended BBO to solve constrained optimization problems. Constraints are handled by modifying the BBO immigration and emigration procedures. The approach that we use does not require any additional tuning parameters beyond those that are required for unconstrained problems. The constrained blended BBO algorithm is compared with solutions based on a stud genetic algorithm (SGA) and standard particle swarm optimization 2007 (SPSO 07). The numerical results demonstrate that constrained blended BBO outperforms SGA and performs similarly to SPSO 07 for constrained single-objective optimization problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A novel modified differential evolution algorithm (NMDE) is proposed to solve constrained optimization problems in this paper. The NMDE algorithm modifies scale factor and crossover rate using an adaptive strategy. For any solution, if it is at a standstill, its own scale factor and crossover rate will be adjusted in terms of the information of all successful solutions. We can obtain satisfactory feasible solutions for constrained optimization problems by combining the NMDE algorithm and a common penalty function method. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can yield better solutions than those reported in the literature for most problems, and it can be an efficient alternative to solving constrained optimization problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Optimization of directional over-current relay (DOCR) settings is an important problem in electrical engineering. The optimization model of the problem turns out to be non-linear and highly constrained in which two settings namely time dial setting (TDS) and plug setting (PS) of each relay are considered as decision variables; the sum of the operating times of all the primary relays, which are expected to operate in order to clear the faults of their corresponding zones, is considered as an objective function. In the present study, three models are considered namely IEEE 3-bus model, IEEE 4-bus model and IEEE 6-bus model. To solve the problem, we have applied five newly developed versions of differential evolution (DE) called modified DE versions (MDE1, MDE2, MDE3, MDE4, and MDE5). The results are compared with the classical DE algorithm and with five more algorithms available in the literature; the numerical results show that the modified DE algorithms outperforms or perform at par with the other algorithms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents reduced-rank linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamforming algorithms based on joint iterative optimization of filters. The proposed reduced-rank scheme is based on a constrained joint iterative optimization of filters according to the minimum variance criterion. The proposed optimization procedure adjusts the parameters of a projection matrix and an adaptive reduced-rank filter that operates at the output of the bank of filters. We describe LCMV expressions for the design of the projection matrix and the reduced-rank filter. We then describe stochastic gradient and develop recursive least-squares adaptive algorithms for their efficient implementation along with automatic rank selection techniques. An analysis of the stability and the convergence properties of the proposed algorithms is presented and semi-analytical expressions are derived for predicting their mean squared error (MSE) performance. Simulations for a beamforming application show that the proposed scheme and algorithms outperform in convergence and tracking the existing full-rank and reduced-rank algorithms while requiring comparable complexity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]