Fuzzy Integer Nonlinear Programming Research Articles

A ubiquitous manufacturing network system

In this study, a ubiquitous manufacturing network system was constructed. In this system, a customer places an order for an action figure by using a client-side app or a Web-based interface and pays online. The system server then assigns the order to the convenience store nearest the customer's location to print the required action figure. For determining the most suitable convenience store, a fuzzy integer-nonlinear programming model was proposed and solved using two modified fuzzy Dijkstra algorithms. Subsequently, the customer is informed of the location of and route to the recommended convenience store. Two illustrative cases were used to verify the applicability of using the proposed methodology. In addition, compared with an existing mobile guide, the proposed methodology effectively recommended the shortest path for obtaining the required action figure and reduced the waiting time at the convenience store. We construct a ubiquitous manufacturing network system.A customer places an order for an action figure and pays online.The order is assigned to a convenience store nearest to the customer's location.A fuzzy integer nonlinear programming model is solved to determine the most suitable convenience store.

A fuzzy integer-nonlinear programming approach for creating a flexible just-in-time location-aware service in a mobile environment

This study provides a timely and flexible location-aware service (LAS) to mobile users in a dynamic environment. Few previous studies have examined similar concepts. In the proposed methodology, the inaccuracy of user positioning and the uncertainty of manual service preparation are considered and modeled by using fuzzy numbers. These numbers are used as inputs to establish a fuzzy integer-nonlinear programming model applied in identifying the most suitable service location and path. A required service is prepared immediately before a user reaches the recommended service location. To manage simultaneous requests from multiple users, the concepts of fuzzy modeling, route planning, and parallel machine scheduling are combined. Thus, the proposed LAS can distribute multiple users among service locations, thereby enabling users to avoid unnecessary waiting, which is a major problem associated with existing LASs. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, two experiments were conducted in small areas in Taichung City and Taipei City, Taiwan. The experimental results revealed that the waiting times of users were substantially reduced, increasing the average satisfaction level. However, improving the accuracy of user positioning does not necessarily facilitate achieving a high average satisfaction level.

A Fuzzy Parallel Processing Scheme for Enhancing the Effectiveness of a Dynamic Just-in-time Location-aware Service System

Location-aware service systems are a hot topic in diverse research fields including mobile commerce, ambient intelligence, remote sensing and ubiquitous computing. However, the timeliness and efficiency of such systems are two issues that have rarely been emphasized. For this reason, this study tries to establish a location-aware service system in which both the timeliness and efficiency of service provision are addressed. To this end, some innovative treatments have been used in the proposed methodology. First, the uncertainty of detecting a user’s location using the global positioning system is considered by modeling the location and speed of the user with fuzzy numbers. Subsequently, a fuzzy integer-nonlinear programming model is formulated to address the problem of finding the dynamic just-in-time service location and path for the user. To help solve the problem, the maximum entropy weighting function and the basic defuzzification distribution (BADD) method are applied to defuzzify the fuzzy variables. In addition, to enhance the efficiency of solving the problem, a fuzzy parallel processing scheme is also proposed for decomposing the problem into smaller pieces that can be handled by separate processing modules. An illustrative example is used to illustrate the proposed methodology. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methodology has been confirmed with an experiment. According to the results, using the proposed methodology the waiting time could be reduced by 60%.

A Biobjective Fuzzy Integer-Nonlinear Programming Approach for Creating an Intelligent Location-Aware Service

An intelligent location-aware service is created in the present study, in which a timely service is provided to a user without changing the user's pace. To the user, there are two goals to achieve—one is to reach the service location just in time; the other is to get to the destination as soon as possible. To consider the two objectives at the same time and to allow for the uncertainty in the dynamic environment, a biobjective fuzzy integer-nonlinear programming problem is formulated and solved. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology, an experiment has been performed. According to the experimental results, the user's waiting time was reduced by 61% using the proposed methodology.