Using concave optimization methods for inexact quadratic programming problems with an application to waste management

Quadratic programming is potentially capable of strategic decision making in real world problems. However, practical problems rarely conform to crisp parameters, and hence the prospects of these problems with inexact parameters are inevitably higher. The existing studies regarding public welfare schemes/ organizations reveal that their objectives end up as minimization of cost functions and are governed by linear or concave quadratic programming problems. The present study proposes a method that can be applied to concave type quadratic objective function subject to linear constraints with inexact parameters. A comparison is also drawn with existing methods to establish its simplicity and efficiency. Further, a numerical example is illustrated, and finally, a waste management problem is formulated and solved using the proposed method.

A Genetic-Algorithms-Based Approach for Programming Linear and Quadratic Optimization Problems with Uncertainty

This paper proposes a genetic-algorithms-based approach as an all-purpose problem-solving method for operation programming problems under uncertainty. The proposed method was applied for management of a municipal solid waste treatment system. Compared to the traditional interactive binary analysis, this approach has fewer limitations and is able to reduce the complexity in solving the inexact linear programming problems and inexact quadratic programming problems. The implementation of this approach was performed using the Genetic Algorithm Solver of MATLAB (trademark of MathWorks). The paper explains the genetic-algorithms-based method and presents details on the computation procedures for each type of inexact operation programming problems. A comparison of the results generated by the proposed method based on genetic algorithms with those produced by the traditional interactive binary analysis method is also presented.