A Multi-User Interactive Coral Reef Optimization Algorithm for Considering Expert Knowledge in the Unequal Area Facility Layout Problem

The problem of Unequal Area Facility Layout Planning (UA-FLP) has been addressed by a large number of approaches considering a set of quantitative criteria. Moreover, more recently, the personal qualitative preferences of an expert designer or decision-maker (DM) have been taken into account too. This article deals with capturing more than a single DM’s personal preferences to obtain a common and collaborative design including the whole set of preferences from all the DMs to obtain more complex, complete, and realistic solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the preferences of more than one expert designer have been considered in the UA-FLP. The new strategy has been implemented on a Coral Reef Optimization (CRO) algorithm using two techniques to acquire the DMs’ evaluations. The first one demands the simultaneous presence of all the DMs, while the second one does not. Both techniques have been tested over three well-known problem instances taken from the literature and the results show that it is possible to obtain sufficient designs capturing all the DMs’ personal preferences and maintaining low values of the quantitative fitness function.

Design of Comminution Plants in the Ceramic Industry Using a Simulation-based Optimization Approach

In many cases, the design process of a structural ceramic comminution plant typically consists of an ‘expert designer’ who makes decisions using intuitive criteria to select commercial equipment. This paper proposes a simulationbased optimization approach to help decisionmaking. The complexity of the problem lies in selecting the model and amount of equipment for each stage at the lowest cost while simultaneously satisfying a previously fixed production and granulometry. The proposed approach is based on a genetic algorithm to generate solutions and facilitate the optimization process, together with discrete simulation to evaluate the performance of the comminution process according to its service level. To evaluate the algorithm, different problems, whose parameters are based on the requirements of the ceramic industry, are solved and analyzed.

“Senza mostrare i muscoli”: i progetti di rigenerazione di Tao+C e AZL nel solco della “prosperosa società” della Cina contemporanea

In 2019 the young Shanghai studio Atelier Tao+C builds in the village of Qinlongwu, in the heart of the Zhejiang Province rural area, a building with a complicated and alien functional program: a library capable of hosting a “capsule hotel” to differentiate the rural accommodation offer to the young and emerging middle class. This project has been anticipated a few kilometres away by the more expert designer Zheng Lei, who designed in 2015 a community library for the ShanShe ethnic minority in DaiJiaShan village. Both are coming from cultural investments they aim to reinforce territorial ties, dealing with transcalar processes, political understanding and planning action. They fall within more significant investments, involving local institutions intent on reviving depressed areas through cultural operations and on the other metropolitan investors open to experimenting new markets. This process has to be observed in the logic of Chinese national policies, which is turning its five-year development plans towards its countryside. However, the projects do not translate those political leaps forward with personal authorship, but instead establishing refinements of something that the landscape already suggests. This attitude measures the intimate spatial instances through which the new generation of Chinese architects contours their own identity: avoiding self-representation and disciplinary sovereignty, it insists in dilated observation times, multi-perspectives and the desire to verify in the long term the tenacity of possible territorial links.

Fabric retrieval system for apparel e-commerce considering Kansei information

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to create a fabric retrieval system for designers that is based on a database that includes designers’ criteria and Kansei (sense and feeling) information, designed for the selection of a fabric from a wide range in e-commerce. Design/methodology/approach The database included sensory expressions for each type of fabric taken from fashion journals and values of smoothness, softness, luster and thinness (referred to as Kansei values) for each fabric. The Kansei values were determined by a Japanese expert designer using standard fabric samples of a fabric type. The system uses two search methods to find the desired type of fabric: a category search method and a free word search method. After finding appropriate types of fabric, the user further narrows down the fabrics of the selected type to more suitable fabrics using the Kansei values. The validity of the Kansei values and the effectiveness of the system were verified by 11 professional designers from Japan and Sweden. Findings The Japanese and Swedish designers were satisfied with the fabrics retrieved for specific items and found that the system was effective. The Kansei values were similar among fashion designers and shown to be effective for fabric retrieval. Originality/value The system will allow designers to find appropriate types of fabric and to narrow their search for fabrics among selected types to find candidate fabrics easily and quickly with their Kansei values and experience without technical knowledge of fabrics.

Algorithms for Rapid Development of Inherently-Manufacturable Laminate Devices

We present several algorithms suited for the generation and analysis of structures used in manufacturing laminate electro-mechanical devices. These devices may be fabricated by a family of related manufacturing processes such as printed-circuit MEMS (PC-MEMS) smart composite microstructures (SCM), or lamina emergent mechanisms (LEM), which, by utilizing multi-material laminate composites, enables kinematic motion, component embedding, and monolithic fabrication of high-precision millimeter-scale features. The presented algorithms enable rapid generation of manufacturing features such as support structures and cut files, while facilitating integration with the user’s design intent and available material removal processes. An exemplar device is presented, which, though simple in concept, could not be manufactured without the aid of an expert designer to produce the same features generated by these algorithms.

Optimization of alkali pretreatment of wheat straw to be used as substrate for biofuels production

Alkali pretreatment of wheat straw was optimized by response surface methodology to maximize yields of fermentable sugars in subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and to remove maximum lignin in order to improve rheological attributes of the media. The effects of pretreatment conditions on biomass properties were studied using the Expert Designer software. Concentration of sodium hydroxide and temperature were the factors most affecting pretreatment efficiency. At the optimum (80°C, 39 min, 0.18 g NaOH and 0.06 g lime per g of raw biomass), 93.1 ± 1.0% conversion of cellulose to glucose after enzymatic hydrolysis and 80.3 ± 1.2% yield of monosaccharides (glucose plus xylose and arabinose) from cellulose and hemicellulose of wheat straw were achieved.

Towards a Formal Representation Model of Problem Formulation in Design

Studies on design, show that problem formulation plays a major role in creative design. We plan to construct an interactive computer system that aids problem formulation. In the current stage, to improve our understanding of problem formulation, we have conducted exploratory protocol studies of novice designers and collected data from an expert designer in the form of a depositional interview. A formal representation of the design problem is needed to improve our empirical investigation. We propose a preliminary framework for such a model and we call it a problem map. It provides a basis for comparing how different designers perceive a problem. Our study is based on the design of a model aircraft for the AIAA student design competition. This preliminary analysis shows the evolution of the problem and the solution spaces in the elaboration of the problem maps through time. The problem maps also show a richer representation of attended attributes and relations for the expert and more attributes left in vacuum for the novices.