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Wang, H.; Chen, S.H., and Luo, L., 2020. Topological characterization and optimization design for general arrangements of the research vessels. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 391-395. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. A research vessel is a special ship designed to conduct the surveys and experiments of marine hydrology, geology, meteorology, and biology. Research vessels are equipped with many laboratories and experimental instruments required by various scientific researches, such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Hence, the general arrangement design of the research vessels is a complex task. Current approaches to this design problem are the repetitive process of trial-and-error and rely heavily on the design experience and inspiration of ship designers. This process is time and resource-intensive, which limits the discovery of optimal arrangements and increases the design costs and time. This paper presents a novel topology optimization design approach for the general design of research vessels. In the proposed approach, a multiscale network is utilized for characterizing the general arrangements. And, a mapping from the geometric arrangement to the topological network is defined. Besides, the meta-heuristic optimization techniques are applied in the design phases. For verifying the validity, the topology optimization design approach is demonstrated on the general arrangement design of the noted research vessel Atlantis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]