1,721,062 research outputs found
50th Anniversary Invited Article—Future research directions in stochastic vehicle routing
No full textStochastic vehicle routing, which deals with routing problems in which some of the key problem parameters are not known with certainty, has been an active, but fairly small research area for almost 50 years. However, over the past 15 years we have witnessed a steady increase in the number of papers targeting stochastic versions of the vehicle routing problem (VRP). This increase may be explained by the larger amount of data available to better analyze and understand various stochastic phenomena at hand, coupled with methodological advances that have yielded solution tools capable of handling some of the computational challenges involved in such problems. In this paper, we first briefly sketch the state-of-The-Art in stochastic vehicle routing by examining the main classes of stochastic VRPs (problems with stochastic demands, with stochastic customers, and with stochastic travel or service times), the modeling paradigms that have been used to formulate them, and existing exact and approximate solution methods that have been proposed to tackle them. We then identify and discuss two groups of critical issues and challenges that need to be addressed to advance research in this area. These revolve around the expression of stochastic phenomena and the development of new recourse strategies. Based on this discussion, we conclude the paper by proposing a number of promising research directions
A local branching matheuristic for the multi-vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands
No full textThis paper proposes a local branching matheuristic for the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands (VRPSD). The problem is cast in a two-stage stochastic programming model, in which routes are planned in the first stage and executed in the second stage. In this setting, a failure may occur if a vehicle does not have sufficient capacity to serve the realized demand of a customer, which is revealed only upon arrival at a customer’s location. In the event of a failure, a recourse action is performed by having the vehicle return to the depot to replenish its capacity and resume its planned route at the point of failure. Thus, the objective of the VRPSD is to minimize the sum of the planned routes cost and of the expected recourse cost. We propose a local branching matheuristic to solve the multi-VRPSD. We introduce an intensification procedure applied at each node of the local branching tree. This procedure is embedded in a multi-descent scheme for which we propose a diversification strategy. Extensive computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of our matheuristic
Logistics capacity planning: A stochastic bin packing formulation and a progressive hedging meta-heuristic
Full text linkWe consider the logistics capacity planning problem arising in the context of supply-chain management. We address the tactical-planning problem of determining the quantity of capacity units, hereafter called bins, of different types to secure for the next period of activity, given the uncertainty on future needs in terms of demand for loads (items) to be moved or stored, and the availability and costs of capacity for these movements or storage activities. We propose a modeling framework introducing a new class of bin packing problems, the Stochastic Variable Cost and Size Bin Packing Problem. The resulting two-stage stochastic formulation with recourse assigns to the first stage the tactical capacity-planning decisions of selecting bins, while the second stage models the subsequent adjustments to the plan, securing extra bins and packing the items into the selected bins, performed each time the plan is applied and new information becomes known. We propose a new meta-heuristic based on progressive hedging ideas that includes advanced strategies to accelerate the search and efficiently address the symmetry strongly present in the problem considered due to the presence of several equivalent bins of each type. Extensive computational results for a large set of instances support the claim of validity for the model, efficiency for the solution method proposed, and quality and robustness for the solutions obtained. The method is also used to explore the impact on the capacity plan and the recourse to spot-market capacity of a quite wide range of variations in the uncertain parameters and the economic environment of the firm
An exact algorithm to solve the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands under an optimal restocking policy
Full text linkThis paper examines the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands (VRPSD), in which the actual demand of customers can only be realized upon arriving at the customer location. Under demand uncertainty, a planned route may fail at a specific customer when the observed demand exceeds the residual capacity. There are two ways to face such failure events, a vehicle can either execute a return trip to the depot at the failure location and refill the capacity and complete the split service, or in anticipation of potential failures perform a preventive return to the depot whenever the residual capacity falls below a threshold; overall, these return trips are called recourse actions. In the context of VRPSD, a recourse policy which schedules various recourse actions based on the visits planned beforehand on the route must be designed. An optimal recourse policy prescribes the cost-effective returns based on a set of optimal customer-specific thresholds. We propose an exact solution method to solve the multi-VRPSD under an optimal restocking policy. The Integer L-shaped algorithm is adapted to solve the VRPSD in a branch-and-cut framework. To enhance the efficiency of the presented algorithm, several lower bounding schemes are developed to approximate the expected recourse cost
Partial-route inequalities for the multi-vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands
Full text linkThis paper describes an exact algorithm for a variant of the vehicle routing problem in which customer demands to be collected are stochastic. Demands are revealed upon the vehicle arrival at customer locations. As a result, a vehicle may reach a customer and does not have sufficient capacity to collect the realized demand. Such a situation is referred to as a failure. In this paper the following recourse action is then applied when failure occurs: the vehicle returns to the depot to unload and resumes its planned route at the point of failure. The capacitated vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands (VRPSD) consists of minimizing the sum of the planned routes cost and of the expected recourse cost. The VRPSD is formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming model and solved by means of an integer L-shaped algorithm. This paper introduces three lower bounding functionals based on the generation of general partial routes, as well as an exact separation procedure to identify violated cuts. Extensive computational results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, as measured by a substantial reduction in the number of feasible solutions that have to be explicitly eliminated. This translates into a higher proportion of instances solved to optimality, reduced optimality gaps, and lower computing times. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Stochastic Vehicle Routing Problems
No full textVehicle routing problems (VRPs) have been the subject of numerous research studies since Dantzig and Ramser [16] first presented this general class of optimization problems in a practical setting. Since then, the operations research community has devoted collectively a large effort towards efficiently solving these problems, developing both exact and heuristic methods; see Laporte [40]. The majority of these studies have been conducted under the assumption that all the information necessary to formulate the problems is known and readily available (i.e., one is in a deterministic setting). In practical applications, this assumption is usually not verified given the presence of uncertainty affecting the parameters of the problem. Uncertainty may come from different sources, both from expected variations and unexpected events. Such variations can affect various aspects of the problem under study (e.g., stochastic parameters, which entail additional feasibility requirements and extra costs). This is particularly true in the case of VRP models, which are used both at the tactical level and at the operational level to plan and control logistical operations. In this case, uncertainty is present given the time lag separating the moments where routes are planned and executed, considering the informational flow that defines the problem. For example, if customer demands are uncertain and only revealed when customers are visited, a planned route performed by a vehicle on a given day may turn out to be infeasible if the total observed demand for the customers scheduled on the route exceeds the capacity of the vehicle. When such a situation occurs, additional costs often involving additional decisions must be taken to produce a feasible solution. The need to account for such extra costs when solving VRPs entails developing models that explicitly factor in all relevant uncertainty features of the problem
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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