Flexible flow shop (or a hybrid flow shop) scheduling problem is an extension of classical flow shop scheduling problem. In a simple flow shop configuration, a job having ‘g’ operations is performed on ‘g’ operation centres (stages) with each stage having only one machine. If any stage contains more than one machine for providing alternate processing facility, then the problem...

Nowadays, with the growth of technology and the industrialization of societies, work-related accidents, and consequently the threat of human capital and material resources are among the problems of the countries of the world. The most important legal solution in most countries to control occupational accidents and illnesses is to conduct periodic site visits and identify hazardous sites. To the...

Results of meta-analyses are regarded as the highest level of evidence. A statistically non-significant effect size from a meta-analysis is typically considered true negative even in the presence of a statistically significant signal in individual studies, presumed to be false positive. Here we provide examples from neuroimaging, genetics and psychopharmacology of why meta-analyses may frequent...

This paper describes how meta-level theories are used for analytic learning in MULTI-TAC. MULTI-TAC operationalizes generic heuristics for constraint-satisfaction problems, in order to create programs that are tailored to specific problems. For each of its generic heuris-tics, MULTI-TAC has a meta-theory specifically designed for operationalising that heuris-tic. We present examples of the spec...

This paper introduces an interesting meta-heuristic called Meta-RaPS (Meta-heuristic for Randomized Priority Search) for solving combinatorial problems . Meta-RaPS incorporates randomness within priority rules to construct a feasible solution at each iteration. In addition, Meta-RaPS includes improvement heuristics for enhancing the feasible solution already obtained. Applications discussed inc...