This paper presents a novel population-based meta-heuristic algorithm inspired by the game of tug of war. Utilizing a sport metaphor the algorithm, denoted as Tug of War Optimization (TWO), considers each candidate solution as a team participating in a series of rope pulling competitions.  The  teams  exert  pulling  forces  on  each  other...

background: acute appendicitis is one of the common and urgent illnesses among children.  children usually are unable to help the physicians completely due to weakness in describing the medical history. moreover, acute appendicitis overlaps with conditions of other diseases in terms of symptoms and signs in the first hours of presentation. these conditions lead to unwanted biases as well as err...

Nature-inspired search algorithms have proved to be successful in solving real-world optimization problems. Firefly algorithm is a novel meta-heuristic algorithm which simulates the natural behavior of fireflies. In the present study, optimum design of truss structures with both sizing and geometry design variables is carried out using the firefly algorithm. Additionally, to improve the efficie...

Recently, many meta-heuristic algorithms are proposed for optimization of various problems. Some of them originally are presented for continuous optimization problems and some others are just applicable for discrete ones. In the literature, sizing optimization of truss structures is one of the discrete optimization problems which is solved by many meta-heuristic algorithms. In this paper, in or...

Feature selection is of great importance in Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) analysis. This problem has been solved using some meta-heuristic algorithms such as: GA, PSO, ACO, SA and so on. In this work two novel hybrid meta-heuristic algorithms i.e. Sequential GA and LA (SGALA) and Mixed GA and LA (MGALA), which are based on Genetic algorithm and learning automata for QSAR f...

An efficient assignment and scheduling of tasks is one of the key elements in effective utilization of heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. The task scheduling problem has been proven to be NP-hard is the reason why we used meta-heuristic methods for finding a suboptimal schedule. In this paper we proposed a new approach using TRIZ (specially 40 inventive principles). The basic idea of thi...

In this paper, we propose a vibration damping optimization algorithm to solve a fuzzy mathematical model for the single-item capacitated lot-sizing problem. At first, a fuzzy mathematical model for the single-item capacitated lot-sizing problem is presented. The possibility approach is chosen to convert the fuzzy mathematical model to crisp mathematical model. The obtained crisp model is in the...

this paper investigates the problem of just-in-time permutation flow shop scheduling with limited buffers and linear job deterioration in an uncertain environment. the fuzzy set theory is applied to describe this situation. a novel mixed-integer nonlinear program is presented to minimize the weighted sum of fuzzy earliness and tardiness penalties. due to the computational complexities, the prop...

this paper addresses a new version of the exible ow line prob- lem, i.e., the budget constrained one, in order to determine the required num- ber of processors at each station along with the selection of the most eco- nomical process routes for products. since a number of parameters, such as due dates, the amount of available budgets and the cost of opting particular routes, are imprecise (fuzz...

Job shop scheduling problem (JSP) is an attractive field for researchers and production managers since it is a famous problem in many industries and a complex problem for researchers. Due to NP-hardness property of this problem, many meta-heuristics are developed to solve it. Solution representation (solution seed) is an important element for any meta-heuristic algorithm. Therefore, many resear...