A simultaneous planning of production and scheduling operations in flexible flow shops: case study of tile industry

The aim of this paper is to study a simultaneous lot-sizing and scheduling in multi-product, multi-period flexible flow shop environments. A new mixed integer programming (MIP) model is proposed to formulate the problem. The objective function includes the total cost of production, inventory, and external supply. In this study, in case of not meeting the demand of customers, this demand should be met by foreign suppliers in higher price. Due to the high computational complexity of the studied problem, a rolling horizon heuristic (RHH) and particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) are implemented to solve the problem. These algorithms find a feasible and near-optimal from production planning and scheduling. Additionally, Taguchi method is conducted to calibrate the parameters of the PSO algorithm and select the optimal levels of the influential factors. The computational results show that the algorithms are capable of achieving results with good quality in a reasonable time and PSO has better objective values in comparison with RHH. Also, the real case study for tile industry with real features is applied. Sensitivity analysis is used to evaluate the performance of the model.     

Multi-criteria expertness based cooperative Q-learning

One of the most influential points in cooperative learning is the type of exchanging information. If the content of exchanging information among agents is rich, cooperation gives rise to better results. To extract proper knowledge of agents during the cooperation process, some expertness measures that assign expertness levels to the other agents are used. In this paper, a new method named Multi-Criteria Expertness based cooperative Q-learning (MCE) is proposed that utilizes all of the expertness measures and attempts to enrich the exchanging information more efficiently. In MCE, all expertness measures are considered simultaneously and collective knowledge is equal to the combination of learned knowledge by each of expertness measures. The experimental results confirm outstanding performance of the proposed method on a sample maze world and a hunter-prey problem.     

Reliable Mark-Embedded Algorithm for Verifying Archived/Encrypted Image Contents in Presence Different Attacks with FEC Utilizing Consideration

Wireless Personal Communications - Due to the widely spreading of fake news utilizing image manipulation and its bad effects, this paper investigates efficient image contents verification and...     

CdSnO3/SnD NPs as a Nanocatalyst for Carbonylation of o-Phenylenediamine with CO2

Catalysis Letters - In order to carbonize o-phenylenediamine with CO2, an effective approach was used with UV light irradiation by Sn(IV) doping DFNS (SnD) supported CdSnO3 as a catalyst...     

A new promising electrochemiluminescence probe based on ruthenium nanobeads/silver nanoparticles/graphene oxide modified electrode for ultra-trace analysis of bisphenol A

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - In this paper, a novel signal-off electrochemiluminescence sensor based on a ternary nanocomposite of ruthenium nanobeads/silver nanoparticles/graphene oxide...     

Intelligent energy management of a fuel cell vehicle based on traffic condition recognition

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - This paper presents a methodological approach for intelligent control of fuel cell vehicles based on traffic condition recognition. For this purpose,...     

A highly efficient nanostructured quinary photocatalyst for hydrogen production

Semiconductor photocatalysts play a crucial role when it comes to environmental issues such as global warming, pollutant degradation, fuel shortage, and energy crisis. In this paper, three nanostructured compound (3‐, 4‐, and 5‐component) semiconductor materials were synthesized through a facile one‐pot hydrothermal method, and were applied as alloy photocatalysts to generate hydrogen fuel via a water photo‐splitting process. Nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms revealed that the synthesized materials were all mesoporous and the highest surface area was witnessed for Ag‐doped quinary photocatalyst, viz. Cd_0.1Zn_0.87Sn_0.01Ag_0.01S (CZTSS). This heterogeneous photocatalyst exhibited a maximum performance in evolving hydrogen gas. The superiority of CZTSS was justified in terms of its greater surface area, higher conduction band and its silver plasmon resonance, enhancing the light absorption at long wavelengths. Field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed a spectacular nanostructure for this photocatalyst that was comprised of nanoparticles, platelets, and microspheres attached together. Energy dispersive X‐ray (EDX) analyses of the CZTSS also proved the synthesis of the quinary photocatalyst, having different compositions in distinct zones. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.