An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems.

(2000). The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 139-139.

The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History

Project scheduling under uncertainty survey and research potentials

Through the comparison and analysis of the English,Japanese and Chinese version of 《Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage》,the article points out that there are some translation errors in the official Chinese version,and offers a rectifying proposal.

Some Reflections on the Explanation of "Cultural Heritage" in the Chinese Version of 《Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage》

An important, but seldom investigated, issue in the field of dynamic vehicle routing and dispatching is how to exploit information about future events to improve decision making. In this paper, we address this issue in a real-time setting with a strategy based on probabilistic knowledge about future request arrivals to better manage the fleet of vehicles. More precisely, the new strategy introduces dummy customers (representing forecasted requests) in vehicle routes to provide a good coverage of the territory. This strategy is assessed through computational experiments performed in a simulated environment.

Exploiting Knowledge About Future Demands for Real-Time Vehicle Dispatching

A gender perspective on work-life balance, perceived stress, and locus of control ☆

Experiments studying the behavior of agent-based methods over varying levels of uncertainty in comparison to traditional optimization methods are generally absent from the literature. In this paper we apply two structurally distinct solution approaches, an on-line optimization and an agent-based approach, to a drayage problem with time windows under two types of uncertainty. Both solution approaches are able to respond to dynamic events. The on-line optimization approach utilizes a mixed integer program to obtain a feasible route at 30-s intervals. The second solution approach deploys agents that engage in auctions to satisfy their own objectives based on the information they perceive and maintain locally. Our results reveal that the agent-based system can outperform the on-line optimization when service time duration is highly uncertain. The on-line optimization approach, on the other hand, performs competitively with the agent-based system under conditions of job-arrival uncertainty. When both moderate service time and job-arrival uncertainties are combined, the agent system outperforms the on-line optimization; however, in the case of extremely high combined uncertainty, the on-line optimization outperforms the agent-based approach.

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Can agents measure up? A comparative study of an agent-based and on-line optimization approach for a drayage problem with uncertainty

textThe term dray dates back to the 14th century when it was used commonly to describe a type of very sturdy sideless cart . In the 1700s the word drayage came into use meaning “to transport by a sideless cart”. Today, drayage commonly refers to the transport of containerized cargo to and from port or rail terminals and inland locations. With the phenomenal growth of containerized freight since the container’s introduction in 1956, the drayage industry has also experienced significant growth. In fact, according to the Bureau for Transportation Statistics, the world saw total maritime container traffic grow to approximately 417 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2006. 

Unfortunately, the drayage portion of a door-to-door container move tends to be the most costly part of the move. There are a variety of reasons for this disproportionate assignment of costs, including a great deal of uncertainty at the interface of modes. For example, trucks moving containers to and from a port terminal are often uncertain as to how long it will take them to pick up a designated container coming from a ship, from the terminal stack, or from customs. This uncertainty leads to much difficulty and inefficiency in planning a profitable routing for multiple containers in one day. We study this problem from three perspectives using both empirical and theoretical techniques.

/pdf/dissecting-drayage-an-examination-of-structure-information-3pxxn79ykp.pdf

Dissecting Drayage: An Examination of Structure, Information, and Control in Drayage Operations

Using GIS and optimization to manage construction and demolition waste: The case of abandoned quarries in Lebanon.

This paper brings forth from the literature a series of learning curve models and evaluates them through the lens of the construction industry. The review suggests that there is still no consensus on which model provides the best fit and predictability for construction data. As such, this paper puts forth a new model that is suitable for the modern construction industry as it accommodates for both mechanization and forgetting. The proposed model is similar to the Wright model (an exponential model of learning), but, through recursion, places more emphasis on recent data. The proposed model shows an error of less than 1% when predicting the cumulative average completion times in three out of four cases examined.

F. Jordan Srour

Papers

A gender perspective on work-life balance, perceived stress, and locus of control ☆

Can agents measure up? A comparative study of an agent-based and on-line optimization approach for a drayage problem with uncertainty

Dissecting Drayage: An Examination of Structure, Information, and Control in Drayage Operations

Using GIS and optimization to manage construction and demolition waste: The case of abandoned quarries in Lebanon.

Learning Curves in Construction: A Critical Review and New Model