Search

Paper waste in the mockups design with regular, irregular, and amorphous patterns is a critical problem in digital printing presses. Paper waste reduction directly impacts production costs, generating business and environmental benefits. This problem can be mapped to the two-dimensional irregular bin-packing problem. In this paper, an iterated local search algorithm using a novel neighborhood structure to detect overlaps between amorphous shapes is introduced. This algorithm is used to solve the paper waste problem, modeled as one 2D irregular bin-packing problem. The experimental results show that this approach works efficiently and effectively to detect and correct the overlaps between regular, irregular, and amorphous figures.

Rewinding machines are used in the paper converting industrial sector to unroll paper veils from large source reels and wind them around smaller rolls, for the production of paper logs to be used in household activities. Many different types of rewinding machine exist, and they are mostly based on stapling devices which automatically unroll a large coil of paper, roll it up around a new log, stop the veil allowing it to be torn off, unload the completed paper log, and reload a new paper core to be rolled up. Winding units generally include a primary and a secondary roller, supplying the desired rotational speed for winding, and a pressure unit consisting of a pressure roller in contact with the paper log being rolled up, which assures adequate containment and avoids the paper log to escape. All known systems have some mechanical limitations, mainly due to the contact of the pressure roller with the paper log, causing instabilities and vibrations, particularly when working with soft paper veils. This limits the maximum possible winding speed. The aim of this paper is it to present a detailed kinematic analysis of a novel pressure unit which overcomes the aforementioned limitation.

We introduce our efforts within the project ‘The science of deep specification’ to work out the key formal underpinnings of industrial-scale formal specifications of software and hardware components, anticipating a world where large verified systems are routinely built out of smaller verified components that are also used by many other projects. We identify an important class of specification that has already been used in a few experiments that connect strong component-correctness theorems across the work of different teams. To help popularize the unique advantages of that style, we dub itdeep specification, and we say that it encompasses specifications that arerich,two-sided,formalandlive(terms that we define in the article). Our core team is developing a proof-of-concept system (based on the Coq proof assistant) whose specification and verification work is divided across largely decoupled subteams at our four institutions, encompassing hardware microarchitecture, compilers, operating systems and applications, along with cross-cutting principles and tools for effective specification. We also aim to catalyse interest in the approach, not just by basic researchers but also by users in industry.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Verified trustworthy software systems’.

We congratulate the authors Bertsimas, Pauphilet and van Parys (hereafter BPvP) and Hastie, Tibshirani and Tibshirani (hereafter HTT) for providing fresh and insightful views on the problem of variable selection and prediction in linear models. Their contributions at the fundamental level provide guidance for more complex models and procedures.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the main result in the paper by D.Y. Gao and X. Lu [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in 1D, Z. Angew. Math. Phys. (2016) 67:62]. More precisely we provide a detailed study of the problem considered in that paper, pointing out the importance of the norm on the space $C^{1}[a,b]$; because no norm (topology) is mentioned on $C^{1}[a,b]$ we look at it as being a subspace of $W^{1,p}(a,b)$ for $p\in [1,\infty]$ endowed with its usual norm. We show that the objective function has not local extrema with the mentioned constraints for $p\in [1,4)$, and has (up to an additive constant) only a local maximizer for $p=\infty$, unlike the conclusion of the main result of the discussed paper where it is mentioned that there are (up to additive constants) two local minimizers and a local maximizer. We also show that the same conclusions are valid for the similar problem treated in the preprint by X. Lu and D.Y. Gao [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in higher dimensions, arXiv:1607.03995]., 12 pages; in this version we added the forgotten condition $F(x) \ne 0$ for $x\in (a,b)$ on page 3

Cooperative games form an important class of problems in game theory, where a key goal is to distribute a value among a set of players who are allowed to cooperate by forming coalitions. An outcome of the game is given by an allocation vector that assigns a value share to each player. A crucial aspect of such games is submodularity (or convexity). Indeed, convex instances of cooperative games exhibit several nice properties, e.g. regarding the existence and computation of allocations realizing some of the most important solution concepts proposed in the literature. For this reason, a relevant question is whether one can give a polynomial-time characterization of submodular instances, for prominent cooperative games that are in general non-convex. In this paper, we focus on a fundamental and widely studied cooperative game, namely the spanning tree game. An efficient recognition of submodular instances of this game was not known so far, and explicitly mentioned as an open question in the literature. We here settle this open problem by giving a polynomial-time characterization of submodular spanning tree games.

In this paper we develop new tensor methods for unconstrained convex optimization, which solve at each iteration an auxiliary problem of minimizing convex multivariate polynomial. We analyze the simplest scheme, based on minimization of a regularized local model of the objective function, and its accelerated version obtained in the framework of estimating sequences. Their rates of convergence are compared with the worst-case lower complexity bounds for corresponding problem classes. Finally, for the third-order methods, we suggest an efficient technique for solving the auxiliary problem, which is based on the recently developed relative smoothness condition (Bauschke et al. in Math Oper Res 42:330–348, 2017; Lu et al. in SIOPT 28(1):333–354, 2018). With this elaboration, the third-order methods become implementable and very fast. The rate of convergence in terms of the function value for the accelerated third-order scheme reaches the level $$O\left( {1 \over k^4}\right) $$ O 1 k 4 , where k is the number of iterations. This is very close to the lower bound of the order $$O\left( {1 \over k^5}\right) $$ O 1 k 5 , which is also justified in this paper. At the same time, in many important cases the computational cost of one iteration of this method remains on the level typical for the second-order methods.

This paper introduced the use of two new adsorbents, Akrosorb soda-lime and Bentonite clay, for refinery flare flue gas capture and storage. This study also developed a novel pilot plant model with 409.7149 kg/h capacity refinery flare emission capture with a novel adsorption column configuration using Akrosorb soda-lime and Bentonite clay adsorbents. The flare flue gas adsorption unit was designed, fabricated, test run, and commissioned. The adsorption column temperature is 28 ± 10 °C and has a pressure of 131.7 kPa. The novel plant RSM optimization result shows that 93.24% of CO2 and 62.18% of CO were absorbed, while 86.14% of NOx and 55.87% of HC were absorbed. The established optimum conditions of CO2, NOx, HC, and CO removal efficiency are 22 °C, 2 atm, and 60 min. The variation in flare gas emission could impact the removal efficiency of the plant. The results show the maximum adsorption ability or capacity of 314.30 mg/g, and 68.90 mg/g was reached at 60 min for Akrosorb soda-lime and molded Bentonite adsorbents. Therefore, the developed novel technology for CO2 and other GHG capture is technically feasible and friendly. The combined usage of both adsorbents will enhance the capture of GHG at a low cost compared to using Akrosorb alone as an adsorbent.

© 2019, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. It is well known that the classical and Sobolev wave fronts were extended to nonequivalent global versions by the use of the short-time Fourier transform. In this very short paper, we give complete characterizations of the former wave front sets in terms of the short-time Fourier transform.

Recently, various types of single valued neutrosophic (SVN) rough set models were presented based on the same inclusion relation. However, there is another SVN inclusion relation in SVN sets. In this paper, we propose a new type of SVN covering rough set model based on the new inclusion relation. Furthermore, the graph and matrix representations of the new SVN covering approximation operators are presented. Firstly, the notion of SVN β 2 -covering approximation space is proposed, which is decided by the new inclusion relation. Then, a type of SVN covering rough set model under the SVN β 2 -covering approximation space is presented. Moreover, there is a corresponding SVN relation rough set model based on a SVN relation induced by the SVN β 2 -covering, and two conditions under which the SVN β 2 -covering can induce a symmetric SVN relation are presented. Thirdly, the graph and matrix representations of the new SVN covering rough set model are investigated. Finally, we propose a novel method for decision making (DM) problems in paper defect diagnosis under the new SVN covering rough set model.

We consider the problem of maximizing a homogeneous polynomial on the unit sphere and its hierarchy of sum-of-squares relaxations. Exploiting the polynomial kernel technique, we obtain a quadratic improvement of the known convergence rate by Reznick and Doherty and Wehner. Specifically, we show that the rate of convergence is no worse than $$O(d^2/\ell ^2)$$ O ( d 2 / ℓ 2 ) in the regime $$\ell = \Omega (d)$$ ℓ = Ω ( d ) where $$\ell $$ ℓ is the level of the hierarchy and d the dimension, solving a problem left open in the recent paper by de Klerk and Laurent (arXiv:1904.08828 ). Importantly, our analysis also works for matrix-valued polynomials on the sphere which has applications in quantum information for the Best Separable State problem. By exploiting the duality relation between sums of squares and the Doherty–Parrilo–Spedalieri hierarchy in quantum information theory, we show that our result generalizes to nonquadratic polynomials the convergence rates of Navascués, Owari and Plenio.

Pulp washing process has the features of multivariate, time delay, nonlinearity. Considering the difficulties of modeling and optimal control in pulp washing process, a data-driven operational-pattern optimization method is proposed to model and optimize the pulp washing process in this paper. The most important quality indexes of pulp washing performance are residual soda in the washed pulp and Baume degree of extracted black liquor. Considering the difficulties of modeling, online measurement of these indexes, two-step neural networks, and multivariate logistic regression are used to establish the prediction models of residual soda and Baume degree. The mathematical model of the washing process can be identified, and the indexes can meet the production requirements. In the target of better product quality, low cost, and low energy consumption, a multiobjective problems is solved by ant colony optimization algorithm based on the optimized operational-pattern database. It shows that the theoretical analyses are correct and the practical applications are feasible, optimization control system has been designed for the pulp washing process, and the practical results show that pulp production increased by 20% and water consumption decreased by nearly 30%. This method is effective in the pulp washing process.

The possibilities of exploiting the special structure of d.c. programs, which consist of optimizing the difference of convex functions, are currently more or less limited to variants of the DCA proposed by Pham Dinh Tao and Le Thi Hoai An in 1997. These assume that either the convex or the concave part, or both, are evaluated by one of their subgradients. In this paper we propose an algorithm which allows the evaluation of both the concave and the convex part by their proximal points. Additionally, we allow a smooth part, which is evaluated via its gradient. In the spirit of primal-dual splitting algorithms, the concave part might be the composition of a concave function with a linear operator, which are, however, evaluated separately. For this algorithm we show that every cluster point is a solution of the optimization problem. Furthermore, we show the connection to the Toland dual problem and prove a descent property for the objective function values of a primal-dual formulation of the problem. Convergence of the iterates is shown if this objective function satisfies the Kurdyka--\L ojasiewicz property. In the last part, we apply the algorithm to an image processing model.

In this short paper, we will show that the space of real valued uniformly continuous functions defined on a metric space (X,d) is a ring if and only if every subset A ? X has one of the following properties: ? A is Bourbaki-bounded, i.e., every uniformly continuous function on X is bounded on A. ? A contains an infinite uniformly isolated subset, i.e., there exist ? > 0 and an infinite subset F ? A such that d(a,x) ? ? for every a ? F, x ? X n \{a}.

In order to solve the Sylvester equations more efficiently, a new four parameters positive and skew-Hermitian splitting (FPPSS) iterative method is proposed in this paper based on the previous research of the positive and skew-Hermitian splitting (PSS) iterative method. We prove that when coefficient matrix A and B satisfy certain conditions, the FPPSS iterative method is convergent in the parameter&rsquo, s value region. The numerical experiment results show that compared with previous iterative method, the FPPSS iterative method is more effective in terms of iteration number IT and runtime.

The "exact subgraph" approach was recently introduced as a hierarchical scheme to get increasingly tight semidefinite programming relaxations of several NP-hard graph optimization problems. Solving these relaxations is a computational challenge because of the potentially large number of violated subgraph constraints. We introduce a computational framework for these relaxations designed to cope with these difficulties. We suggest a partial Lagrangian dual, and exploit the fact that its evaluation decomposes into several independent subproblems. This opens the way to use the bundle method from non-smooth optimization to minimize the dual function. Finally computational experiments on the Max-Cut, stable set and coloring problem show the excellent quality of the bounds obtained with this approach., arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1902.05345

We investigate the asymptotic properties of the trajectories generated by a second-order dynamical system with Hessian driven damping and a Tikhonov regularization term in connection with the minimization of a smooth convex function in Hilbert spaces. We obtain fast convergence results for the function values along the trajectories. The Tikhonov regularization term enables the derivation of strong convergence results of the trajectory to the minimizer of the objective function of minimum norm.

We propose a complete-search algorithm for solving a class of non-convex, possibly infinite-dimensional, optimization problems to global optimality. We assume that the optimization variables are in a bounded subset of a Hilbert space, and we determine worst-case run-time bounds for the algorithm under certain regularity conditions of the cost functional and the constraint set. Because these run-time bounds are independent of the number of optimization variables and, in particular, are valid for optimization problems with infinitely many optimization variables, we prove that the algorithm converges to an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon $$\end{document}ε-suboptimal global solution within finite run-time for any given termination tolerance \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon > 0$$\end{document}ε>0. Finally, we illustrate these results for a problem of calculus of variations.

We study the classical \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}}$$\end{document}NP-hard problems of finding maximum-size subsets from given sets of k terminal pairs that can be routed via edge-disjoint paths (MaxEDP) or node-disjoint paths (MaxNDP) in a given graph. The approximability of MaxEDP/MaxNDP is currently not well understood; the best known lower bound is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${2^{\varOmega (\sqrt{\log n})}}$$\end{document}2Ω(logn), assuming \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}\not \subseteq \mathsf {DTIME}(n^{\mathcal {O}(\log n)})}$$\end{document}NP⊈DTIME(nO(logn)). This constitutes a significant gap to the best known approximation upper bound of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{n})}$$\end{document}O(n) due to Chekuri et al. (Theory Comput 2:137–146, 2006), and closing this gap is currently one of the big open problems in approximation algorithms. In their seminal paper, Raghavan and Thompson (Combinatorica 7(4):365–374, 1987) introduce the technique of randomized rounding for LPs; their technique gives an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(1)}$$\end{document}O(1)-approximation when edges (or nodes) may be used by \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}\left( \log n/\log \log n\right) }$$\end{document}Ologn/loglogn paths. In this paper, we strengthen the fundamental results above. We provide new bounds formulated in terms of the feedback vertex set number r of a graph, which measures its vertex deletion distance to a forest. In particular, we obtain the following results:For MaxEDP, we give an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{r} \log ({k}r))}$$\end{document}O(rlog(kr))-approximation algorithm. Up to a logarithmic factor, our result strengthens the best known ratio \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{n})}$$\end{document}O(n) due to Chekuri et al., as \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${r\le n}$$\end{document}r≤n.Further, we show how to route \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\varOmega ({\text {OPT}}^{*})}$$\end{document}Ω(OPT∗) pairs with congestion bounded by \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\log (kr)/\log \log (kr))}$$\end{document}O(log(kr)/loglog(kr)), strengthening the bound obtained by the classic approach of Raghavan and Thompson.For MaxNDP, we give an algorithm that gives the optimal answer in time \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${(k+r)^{\mathcal {O}(r)}\cdot n}$$\end{document}(k+r)O(r)·n. This is a substantial improvement on the run time of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${2^kr^{\mathcal {O}(r)}\cdot n}$$\end{document}2krO(r)·n, which can be obtained via an algorithm by Scheffler. We complement these positive results by proving that MaxEDP is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}}$$\end{document}NP-hard even for \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${r=1}$$\end{document}r=1, and MaxNDP is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {W}[1]}$$\end{document}W[1]-hard when r is the parameter. This shows that neither problem is fixed-parameter tractable in r unless \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {FPT}= \mathsf {W}[1]}$$\end{document}FPT=W[1] and that our approximability results are relevant even for very small constant values of r.

Understanding the structure of financial markets deals with suitably determining the functional relation between financial variables. In this respect, important variables are the trading activity, defined here as the number of trades N, the traded volume V, the asset price P, the squared volatility \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\sigma ^2$$\end{document}σ2, the bid-ask spread S and the cost of trading C. Different reasonings result in simple proportionality relations (“scaling laws”) between these variables. A basic proportionality is established between the trading activity and the squared volatility, i.e., \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$N \sim \sigma ^2$$\end{document}N∼σ2. More sophisticated relations are the so called 3/2-law \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$N^{3/2} \sim \sigma P V /C$$\end{document}N3/2∼σPV/C and the intriguing scaling \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$N \sim (\sigma P/S)^2$$\end{document}N∼(σP/S)2. We prove that these “scaling laws” are the only possible relations for considered sets of variables by means of a well-known argument from physics: dimensional analysis. Moreover, we provide empirical evidence based on data from the NASDAQ stock exchange showing that the sophisticated relations hold with a certain degree of universality. Finally, we discuss the time scaling of the volatility \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\sigma $$\end{document}σ, which turns out to be more subtle than one might naively expect.

In convex integer programming, various procedures have been developed to strengthen convex relaxations of sets of integer points. On the one hand, there exist several general-purpose methods that strengthen relaxations without specific knowledge of the set S of feasible integer points, such as popular linear programming or semi-definite programming hierarchies. On the other hand, various methods have been designed for obtaining strengthened relaxations for very specific sets S that arise in combinatorial optimization. We propose a new efficient method that interpolates between these two approaches. Our procedure strengthens any convex set containing a set S⊆ { 0 ,1 } n by exploiting certain additional information about S. Namely, the required extra information will be in the form of a Boolean formula ϕ defining the target set S. The new relaxation is obtained by “feeding” the convex set into the formula ϕ. We analyze various aspects regarding the strength of our procedure. As one application, interpreting an iterated application of our procedure as a hierarchy, our findings simplify, improve, and extend previous results by Bienstock and Zuckerberg on covering problems., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In this short paper, we extend the classical Hoffman-Meeks Halfspace Theorem [Hoffman and Meeks, 'The strong halfspace theorem for minimal surfaces', Invent. Math. 101 (1990) 373-377] to self-shrinkers, that is: Let $P$ be a hyperplane passing through the origin. The only properly immersed self-shrinker $\Sigma $ contained in one of the closed half-space determined by $P$ is $\Sigma = P$. Our proof is geometric and uses a catenoid type hypersurface discovered by Kleene-Moller [Kleene and Moller, 'Self-shrinkers with a rotational symmetry', Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 366 (2014) 3943-3963]. Also, using a similar geometric idea, we obtain that the only self-shrinker properly immersed in an closed cylinder $ \overline {B^{k+1} (R)} \times {\mathbb R}^{n-k}\subset {\mathbb R}^{n+1}$, for some $k\in \{1, \ldots, n\}$ and radius $R$, $R \leqslant \sqrt {2k}$, is the cylinder ${\mathbb S}^k (\sqrt {2k}) \times {\mathbb R}^{n-k}$. We also extend the above results for $\lambda $-hypersurfaces.

The activated sludge process is one of the major aerobic processes used in the biological treatment of wastewater. A significant drawback of this process is the production of excess sludge, the disposal of which can account for 50-60% of the running costs of a plant. Thus there is a growing interest in methods that reduce the volume and mass of excess sludge produced as part of biological wastewater treatment processes. In practice a target value is often set for the sludge content inside the bioreactor. If the sludge content is higher than the target value, the process is stopped and the reactor is cleaned. This is undesirable as it increases running costs. In chapter 2 we investigate a simple model for the activated sludge process in which the influent contains a mixture of soluble and biodegradable particulate substrate. Within the bioreactor the biodegradable particulate substrate is hydrolyzed to form soluble substrate. The soluble organics are used for energy and growth by the biomass. Biomass decay produces soluble substrate in addition to inert material. We use steady-state analysis to investigate how the amount of sludge formed depends upon the residence time and the use of a settling unit. We show that when the steady-state sludge content is plotted as a function of the residence time that there are five generic response diagrams, depending upon the value of the effective recycle parameter. Four of them are desirable because the sludge content is below the target value if the residence time is higher than some critical value that is not ‘too large’ in practice. In chapter 3 we investigate how the volume and mass of excess sludge produced by the activated sludge process can be reduced by coupling the bioreactor used in the process to a sludge disintegration unit. In chapter 4 a seemingly minor modification is made to the model in chapter 2.

Two definitions for the rectifiability of hypersurfaces in Heisenberg groups $\mathbb{H}^n$ have been proposed: one based on ${\mathbb{H}}$-regular surfaces and the other on Lipschitz images of subsets of codimension-$1$ vertical subgroups. The equivalence between these notions remains an open problem. Recent partial results are due to Cole–Pauls, Bigolin–Vittone, and Antonelli–Le Donne. This paper makes progress in one direction: the metric Lipschitz rectifiability of ${\mathbb{H}}$-regular surfaces. We prove that ${\mathbb{H}}$-regular surfaces in $\mathbb{H}^{n}$ with $\alpha $-Hölder continuous horizontal normal, $\alpha> 0$, are metric bilipschitz rectifiable. This improves on the work by Antonelli–Le Donne, where the same conclusion was obtained for $C^{\infty }$-surfaces. In $\mathbb{H}^{1}$, we prove a slightly stronger result: every codimension-$1$ intrinsic Lipschitz graph with an $\epsilon $ of extra regularity in the vertical direction is metric bilipschitz rectifiable. All the proofs in the paper are based on a new general criterion for finding bilipschitz maps between “big pieces” of metric spaces.

This paper determined the optimal order of FGM (1, 1) model through particle swarm optimization algorithm and combined with the World Bank business environment data to predict and analyze the business environment of economies along the Belt and Road. The empirical results show that the FGM (1, 1) model has a good predicting effect on the business environment. In terms of prediction accuracy, the FGM (1, 1) model based on particle swarm optimization algorithm to determine the optimal order is significantly better than the traditional GM (1, 1) model. The predict results show that the business environment level of economies along the Belt and Road will increase year by year from 2021 to 2022, but the overall level is still relatively low. The main innovation of this paper lies in the introduction of the fractional-order grey model into the predictive analysis of the business environment, which is of great significance to the extension and application of fractional-order models in management and economic systems.

In theory, the industrial agglomeration is a double-edged sword as there are both positive and negative externalities. China’s cities, with great disparities on degrees of the industrial agglomeration, often face different energy and carbon dioxide emission problems, which raise the question whether the industrial agglomeration promotes or inhibits energy efficiency and carbon dioxide emission. This paper explored the effects of the industrial agglomeration on carbon efficiency in China. Spatial econometric methods were implemented using panel data (2007–2016) of 285 cities above the prefecture level. The results revealed that industrial agglomerations have significant impacts on the urban carbon efficiency with significant spatial spillover effects. The agglomerations of the manufacturing and high-end productive service industries take positive effects on carbon efficiency while the low-end productive and living service industries take negative effects. As a comparison, we found that the agglomeration effects at the level of the megalopolis are greater than those at the national level, especially for the living services industry, in which the higher levels of agglomeration make the effects on carbon efficiency change from negative to positive. The divisions of labor for the central and common cities in the megalopolises are integrated into the industrial agglomeration. Furthermore, the fractional-order grey forecasting model is used in this paper. By the virtue of its advantage in dealing with small sample data which lack statistical rules, this paper makes an out-of-sample prediction of carbon efficiency and industrial agglomeration degree of Chinese cities. By adding the predicted results to the spatial correlation test, new evidence on the spatial correlation of carbon efficiency and spatial division of labor between cities is obtained. Based on the empirical results of the present study, we have proposed some policy recommendations.

This paper discusses the finite-time stable and finite-time H ∞ control problems of affine nonlinear singular systems subject to actuator saturation. Some sufficient conditions, to guarantee the system is finite-time stable, are established for the affine nonlinear singular systems subject to actuator saturation. First, the finite-time stable problem is investigated by the state undecomposed method, and then the finite-time robust H ∞ control law is presented for the system. Finally, the effectiveness of the designed controllers is shown by an example of a nonlinear singular circuit system in this paper.

Nowadays, rich quantity of information is offered on the Net which makes it hard for the clients to detect necessary information. Programmed techniques are desirable to effectively filter and search useful data from the Net. The purpose of purported text summarization is to get satisfied content handling with information variety. The main factor of document summarization is to extract benefit feature. In this paper, we extract word feature in three group called important words. Also, we extract sentence feature depending on the extracted words. With increasing knowledge on the Internet, it turns out to be an extremely time-consuming, exhausting, and boring mission to read the whole content and papers and get the relevant information on precise topics

Logistics and economic development complement each other. The comprehensive competitiveness of Guangdong provincial economy ranks first in China. Under the influence of COVID-19, the freight development of Guangdong Province has been affected, but there is still lack of quantitative research. It is significant to explore the trend of economic development through the freight development of Guangdong Province. Based on the grey theory model, this paper uses six freight indexes to research freight development of Guangdong Province. Under the assumption that COVID-19 did not happen, we predicted the development value of freight index of Guangdong Province from January to December in 2020 and studied the influence based on the comparison between the predicted value and actual value. The empirical study shows three impact characteristics: stage characteristics, structural characteristics, and entity transmission characteristics. COVID-19 has a negative impact on the development of total freight volume, highway freight volume, waterway freight volume, and air freight volume in Guangdong Province. The influence values were −23.001%, −29.344%, −11.296%, and −3.838%. But, the freight volumes of railway and pipeline were positively affected by 14.343% and 13.057%, respectively, due to their continuity and substitution to other transportation modes. To further explore the abate measures of COVID-19 impact on Guangdong's freight development, the grey correlation model is introduced to study the correlation factors of freight development of Guangdong Province. Through the research of the related factors, this paper puts forward some measures to promote the freight development of Guangdong Province in the postepidemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Mathematical Problems in Engineering is the property of Hindawi Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper proposes an optimal network reconfiguration (ONR) by integrating the renewable energy (RE) based distributed generation (DG) resources, i.e., wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, and electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS). The uncertainties related to renewable energy sources (RESs) are handled by using probability analysis. In this work, wind uncertainty is handled by using Weibull probability density function (PDF), and solar PV uncertainty is modeled by using Beta PDF. This paper also models the load of EVCSs. The ONR is a tool to operate distribution systems (DSs) at optimum cost/loss. In the literature, most of the ONR problems are solved as single objective type. This neccessiate the development of multi-objective based ONR problem and solved using the multi-objective algorithms by considering multiple objectives. Therefore in this paper, total cost of operation and power losses are considered as two objectives functions. The single objective-based ONR is solved using crow search algorithm (CSA) and multi-objective-based ONR is solved using multi-objective-based CSA. As the DS is unbalanced, the power flow for the unbalanced system will include the three-phase transformer. The ONR problem has been solved by considering 17 bus unbalanced and balanced DSs.

In the present work, we propose a novel modulation scheme for 5G wireless communication system. Our contribution is to combine PM-OFDM (Phase Modulation Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) to exploit their distinctive advantages. On the one hand, PM-OFDM is an effective technique to combat multipath fading effects. On the other hand, CDMA can serve multiple users who are using the same resources of time/frequency. The aim is to make a combination of PM-OFDM and CDMA techniques. In this paper, the OFDM-CDMA scheme and its PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio) statistics are reviewed. In this paper, the proposed scheme PM-OFDM-CDMA is described and its performances in terms of PAPR, power spectral density, and BER (Bit Error Rate) are analyzed. Moreover, MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) equalizer is used to avoid multipath and noise effects simultaneously. The simulation through AWGN (Additive white Gaussian noise) and Rayleigh channels is performed using MATLAB. From the simulation results, we observed that PM-OFDM-CDMA is an efficient technique in terms of energy consumption (PAPR = 0dB). Besides, CE-OFDM-CDMA offers high spectral efficiency with low BER due to its low PAPR. In CE-OFDM-CDMA method, the shape of the spectrum varies according to the value of the modulation index h. The band occupied by the spectrum increases with the value of h. Therefore, CE-OFDM-CDMA could be considered as a suitable technique for 5G applications.

PurposeThis paper aims to prove some fixed-point theorems for a general class of mappings in modular G-metric spaces. The results of this paper generalize and extend several known results to modular G-metric spaces, including the results of Mutlu et al. [1]. Furthermore, the authors produce an example to demonstrate the applicability of the results.Design/methodology/approachThe results of this paper are theoretical and analytical in nature.FindingsThe authors established some fixed-point theorems for a general class of mappings in modular G-metric spaces. The results generalize and extend several known results to modular G-metric spaces, including the results of Mutlu et al. [1]. An example was constructed to demonstrate the applicability of the results.Research limitations/implicationsAnalytical and theoretical results.Practical implicationsThe results of this paper can be applied in science and engineering.Social implicationsThe results of this paper is applicable in certain social sciences.Originality/valueThe results of this paper are new and will open up new areas of research in mathematical sciences.

In this paper, the fixed-time synchronization problem for a class of memristive neural networks with discontinuous neuron activation functions and mixed time-varying delays is investigated. With the help of the fixed-time stability theory, under the framework of Filippov solution and differential inclusion theory, several new and useful sufficient criteria for fixed-time synchronization are obtained by designing two types of energy-saving and simple controllers for the considered systems. Compared with the traditional fixed-time synchronization controller, the controllers used in this paper only have one power exponent term, which is a function of the system state error rather than a constant. Moreover, some previous relevant works are especially improved. Finally, two numerical examples are given to show the correctness and the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.

Based on the established serial 6-DOF robot calibration experiment platform, this paper aims to analyze and compare the effects of four error compensation methods, which are pseudotarget iteration-based error compensation method with three different forms and the Newton–Raphson-based error compensation method. Firstly, the pose error model of the serial robot is established based on the M-DH model in this paper. The calibration results show that the accuracy of the Staubli TX60 robot has been greatly improved. The average comprehensive position accuracy is increased by 88.7%, and the average comprehensive attitude accuracy is increased by 56.6%. Secondly, the principles of the four error compensation methods are discussed, and the effectiveness of the four error compensation methods are compared through experiments. The results show that the four error compensation methods can achieve error compensation well. The compensation accuracy is consistent with the identification accuracy of the kinematic model. The pseudotarget iteration with differential form has the best performance by the comprehensive consideration of accuracy and computational efficiency. Error compensation determines whether the accuracy of the identified model can be achieved. This paper presents a systematic experimental validation research on the effectiveness of four error compensation methods, which provides a reliable reference for the kinematic error compensation of industrial robots.

This paper considers a continuous-time quasi birth-death (qbd) process, which informally can be seen as a birth-death process of which the parameters are modulated by an external continuous-time Markov chain. The aim is to numerically approximate the time-dependent distribution of the resulting bivariate Markov process in an accurate and efficient way. An approach based on the Erlangization principle is proposed and formally justified. Its performance is investigated and compared with two existing approaches: one based on numerical evaluation of the matrix exponential underlying the qbd process, and one based on the uniformization technique. It is shown that in many settings the approach based on Erlangization is faster than the other approaches, while still being highly accurate. In the last part of the paper, we demonstrate the use of the developed technique in the context of the evaluation of the likelihood pertaining to a time series, which can then be optimized over its parameters to obtain the maximum likelihood estimator. More specifically, through a series of examples with simulated and real-life data, we show how it can be deployed in model selection problems that involve the choice between a qbd and its non-modulated counterpart.

In the present paper we describe the family of all closed convex plane curves of class $$C^1$$ C 1 which have circles as their isoptics. In the first part of the paper we give a certain characterization of all ellipses based on the notion of isoptic and we give a geometric characterization of curves whose orthoptics are circles. The second part of the paper contains considerations on curves which have circles as their isoptics and we show the form of support functions of all considered curves.

Convolution neural network has become a hot research topic in the field of computer vision because of its superior performance in image classification. Based on the above background, the purpose of this paper is to analyze sports sequence images based on convolutional neural network. In view of the low detection rate of single-frame and the complexity of multiframe detection algorithms, this paper proposes a new algorithm combining single-frame detection and multiframe detection, so as to improve the detection rate of small targets and reduce the detection time. Based on the traditional residual network, an improved, multiscale, residual network is proposed in this paper. The network structure enables the convolution layer to “observe” data from different scales and obtain more abundant input features. Moreover, the depth of the network is reduced, the gradient vanishing problem is effectively suppressed, and the training difficulty is reduced. Finally, the ensemble learning method of relative majority voting is used to reduce the classification error rate of the network to 3.99% on CIFAR-10, and the error rate is reduced by 3% compared with the original residual neural network.

China’s regional economic competition is intensifying; in particular, the cluster development of air transport, high-end manufacturing, and modern service industries is closely related to the construction of regional airports. Local governments have listed aviation hubs as the hardcore advantage of high-quality growth in the new era, but it may also lead to excessive convergence and preferential system competition. Based on the “GDP competition” of local governments in China, this paper uses panel data of 78 airports in mainland China from 2001 to 2018 and tries to explore the causes of airport preferential policies. The Synthetic Control Method is used to study the influence of preferential policies on airport passenger and cargo flow, and then the Spatial Durbin Model is used to verify the spatial spillover effect of aviation hubs, which may be magnified by the preferential policies. This paper finds that the impact of preferential policies on airports in central and western China is mainly reflected in the increase of cargo throughput, and there is a spatial siphon effect on cargo throughput between airports. The implementation of the preferential policy enhances this spatial siphon effect, which in turn leads to more fierce competition. The research results show that the preferential policies, issued in central and western aviation economy, have shown a trend of evolving in the direction of vicious competition. Before the airport preferential system produces more negative effects, it should be corrected in time, and each aviation economic zone in the central and western regions should be scientifically coordinated and reasonably planned.

New technologies are advancing and emerging day by day to improve the safety of humans by making use of various autonomous technologies. The continuous utilization of autonomous vehicles/systems in search and rescue (SAR) operations is a challenging research area particularly for marine-based activities. A comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) providing an overview of improvisations that have been done in the field of autonomous technologies for search and rescue operation over the last five years has been compiled in this paper. A methodology for using autonomous vehicles in water for SAR operations has been incorporated and demonstrated. The focus of this study is to look at the various techniques and address different challenges faced for human beings’ safety during rescue operation. The comparison of results achieved for various technologies and algorithms is highlighted in this paper. This literature survey proves to be a good source of information for fellow researchers to precisely analyze the study results.

WOS:000672427400001 In today's complex and ever-changing world, concerns about the lack of enough data have been replaced by concerns about too much data for supply chain management (SCM). The volume of data generated from all parts of the supply chain has changed the nature of SCM analysis. By increasing the volume of data, the efficiency and effectiveness of the traditional methods have decreased. Limitations of these methods in analyzing and interpreting a large amount of data have led scholars to generate some methods that have high capability to analyze and interpret big data. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to identify the applications of machine learning (ML) in SCM as one of the most well-known artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. By developing a conceptual framework, this paper identifies the contributions of ML techniques in selecting and segmenting suppliers, predicting supply chain risks, and estimating demand and sales, production, inventory management, transportation and distribution, sustainable development (SD), and circular economy (CE). Finally, the implications of the study on the main limitations and challenges are discussed, and then managerial insights and future research directions are given. WOS:000672427400001 Q3

The aim of this paper is to analyze the buckling stability problem for piles in the slope foundation based on cusp catastrophe theory. Formulation of critical buckling load of piles in the slope foundation is obtained. The influential factors of slope angle, distribution of landslide thrust behind the pile, pile-embedded ratio, pile constraints, pile-side friction, pile-side soil resistance, and pile socketed ratio upon buckling stability characteristic for piles in the slope foundation are examined. The results reveal that when pile diameter remains unchanged, critical buckling load increases with the increase of pile length when pile-embedded ratio reaches 60%. When pile length remains unchanged, critical buckling load increases with the increase of pile diameter. Critical buckling load with the assumption of nonlinear horizontal elastic resistance of pile-side soil in the paper is more close to the value based on horizontal elastic resistance of pile-side soil suggested in the code. When slope angle increases, decreased extent of buckling critical load for piles 30–60 m in length is more obvious than the piles which are 10–30 m in length. Strengthening of pile constraints and increase of pile-embedded ratio and socketed ratio are helpful to pile critical buckling load increase. The influential factors of pile-side friction and landslide thrust behind the pile upon pile critical buckling load are tiny and can be neglected.

Microscope vision analysis is applied in many fields. The traditional way is to use the human eye to observe and manually focus to obtain the image of the observed object. However, with the observation object becoming more and more subtle, the magnification of the microscope is required to be larger and larger. The method of manual focusing cannot guarantee the best focusing position of the microscope in use. Therefore, in this paper, we are studying the existing autofocusing technology and the autofocusing method of microscope based on image processing, which is different from the traditional manual focusing method. The autofocusing method of microscope based on image processing does not need the information such as the target position and the focal length of optical system, to directly focus the collected image. First of all, in order to solve the problem of large computation and difficult real time of traditional wavelet based image sharpness evaluation algorithm, this paper proposes an improved wavelet based image sharpness evaluation algorithm; secondly, in view of the situation that the window selected by traditional focusing window selection method is fixed, this paper adopts an adaptive focusing window selection method to increase the focusing window. Finally, this paper studies the extremum search strategy. In order to avoid the interference of the local extremum in the focusing curve, this paper proposes an improved hill-climbing algorithm to achieve the accuracy of focusing search. The simulation results show that the improved wavelet transform image definition evaluation algorithm can improve the definition evaluation performance, and the improved mountain climbing algorithm can reduce the impact of local extremum and improve the accuracy of the search algorithm. All in all, it can be concluded that the method based on image processing proposed in this paper has a good focusing effect, which can meet the needs of anti-interference and extreme value search of microscope autofocus.

In this paper, algebraic relations among four kinds of right semi-tensor product (STP) are discussed. Firstly, this paper provides definitions of right STPs, consisting of the first right matrix-matrix STP, the second right matrix-matrix STP, the first right matrix-vector STP, and the second right matrix-vector STP. Secondly, relations among these right STPs are proposed. Finally, the main results show the convertibility of these right STPs.

To push forward the development of electric vehicles while improving the economy and environment of virtual power plants (VPPs), research on the optimization of VPP capacity considering electric vehicles is carried out. In this paper, based on this, this paper first analyzes the framework of the VPP with electric vehicles and models each unit of the VPP. Secondly, the typical scenarios of wind power, photovoltaic, electric vehicle charging and discharging, and load are formed by the Monte Carlo method to reduce the output deviation of each unit. Then, taking the maximization of the net income and clean energy consumption of the VPP as the objective function, the capacity optimal allocation model of the VPP considering multiobjective is constructed, and the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) is introduced to represent the investment uncertainty faced by the VPP. Finally, a VPP in a certain area of Shanxi Province is used to analyze a calculation example and solve it with CPLEX. The results of the calculation example show that, on the one hand, reasonable selection of the optimal scale of EV connected to the VPP is able to improve the economy and environment of the VPP. On the other hand, the introduction of CVaR is available for the improvement of the scientific nature of VPP capacity allocation decisions.

Sports video is loved by the audience because of its unique charm, so it has high research value and application value to analyze and study the video data of competition. Based on the background of football match, this paper studies the football detection and tracking algorithm in football game video and analyzes the real-time image of real-time mobile devices in sports video augmented reality. Firstly, the image is preprocessed by image graying, image denoising, image binarization, and so on. Secondly, Hough transform is used to locate and detect football, and according to the characteristics of football, Hough transform is improved. Based on the good performance of SIFT algorithm in feature matching, a football tracking algorithm based on SIFT feature matching is proposed, which matches the detected football with the sample football. The simulation results show that the improved Hough transform can effectively detect football and has good antijamming performance. And the designed football tracking algorithm based on SIFT feature matching can accurately track the football trajectory; therefore, the football detection and tracking algorithm designed in this paper is suitable for real-time football monitoring and tracking.

Lot sizing models involve operational and tactical decisions. These decisions may entail multi-level production processes such as assembly operations with multiple plants and limited capacities. Lot sizing problems are widely recognized as NP-hard problems therefore difficult to solve, especially the ones with multiple plants and capacity constraints. The level of complexity rises to an even higher level when there is an interplant transfer between the plants. This paper presents a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based solution methodology applied to large scale multi-plant capacitated lot sizing problem with interplant transfer (MPCLSP-IT). Although the GA has been a very effective and widely accepted meta-heuristic approach used to solve large scale complex problems, it has not been employed for MPCLSP-IT problem. This paper solves the MPCLSP-IT problem in large scale instances by using a genetic algorithm, and in doing so successfully obtains a better solution in terms of computation time when compared to the results obtained by the other methods such as Lagrangian relaxation, greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP) heuristics, and GRASP-path relinking techniques used in extant literature.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the utilization of quality assurance approach in improving the product quality and customer satisfaction while implementing total quality management (TQM) initiatives in leading tractors manufacturing industry situated in Mohali, Punjab, India and highlight the improvements that have taken place as a result of these initiatives. ABC Ltd. (name changed) started implementing TQM as a business management approach in 2007 and its implementation helped the organization to excel in quality, cost and delivery to gain flexibility, provide quality products of wide range and gain operational excellence. Initially, the focus of the industry was on traditional approach that is inspection and control but after TQM it got shifted to prevention of defects and quality assurance. Improvement in field quality, supplier quality and manufacturing quality were mainly focused under quality assurance approach in order to improve product quality and customer satisfaction. Implementation of TQM initiatives helped the industry to double the revenue, triple the profit in just three years and as a result the company got Deming Prize in 2012. The customer satisfaction index improved from 76 to 106, sales volume increased from 27000 to 67000 tractors and market share enhanced from 9.1 to 12.6 percent after TQM deployment within a period of five years. The empirical study presented in this paper is a novel study on augmenting the product quality and customer satisfaction may give insight to the TQM practitioners in promoting similar approaches in their organizations for enhancing customer satisfaction and product quality.

Recent years have witnessed the use of metaheuristic algorithms to solve the optimization problems that usually require extensive computations and time. Among others, scatter search is the widely used evolutionary metaheuristic algorithm. It uses the information of global optima, which is stored in a different and unique set of solutions. In this paper, an updated review of scatter search (SS) is given. SS has been successfully applied in a variety of research problems, namely, data mining, bioinformatics, and engineering design. This paper presents the modified and hybrid versions of SS with their applications. The control strategies are discussed to show their impact on the performance of SS. various issues and future directions related to SS are also discussed. It inspires innovative researchers to use this algorithm for their research domains.

Language and vision are the two most essential parts of human intelligence for interpreting the real world around us. How to make connections between language and vision is the key point in current research. Multimodality methods like visual semantic embedding have been widely studied recently, which unify images and corresponding texts into the same feature space. Inspired by the recent development of text data augmentation and a simple but powerful technique proposed called EDA (easy data augmentation), we can expand the information with given data using EDA to improve the performance of models. In this paper, we take advantage of the text data augmentation technique and word embedding initialization for multimodality retrieval. We utilize EDA for text data augmentation, word embedding initialization for text encoder based on recurrent neural networks, and minimizing the gap between the two spaces by triplet ranking loss with hard negative mining. On two Flickr-based datasets, we achieve the same recall with only 60% of the training dataset as the normal training with full available data. Experiment results show the improvement of our proposed model; and, on all datasets in this paper (Flickr8k, Flickr30k, and MS-COCO), our model performs better on image annotation and image retrieval tasks; the experiments also demonstrate that text data augmentation is more suitable for smaller datasets, while word embedding initialization is suitable for larger ones.