Informatica

In the discrete form of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, we are usually confronted with a decision-matrix formed from the information of some alternatives on some criteria. In this study, a new method is proposed for simultaneous evaluation of criteria and alternatives (SECA) in an MCDM problem. For making this type of evaluation, a multi-objective non-linear programming model is formulated. The model is based on maximization of the overall performance of alternatives with consideration of the variation information of decision-matrix within and between criteria. The standard deviation is used to measure the within-criterion, and the correlation is utilized to consider the between-criterion variation information. By solving the multi-objective model, we can determine the overall performance scores of alternatives and the objective weights of criteria simultaneously. To validate the proposed method, a numerical example is used, and three analyses are made. Firstly, we analyse the objective weights determined by the method, secondly, the stability of the performance scores and ranking results are examined, and finally, the ranking results of the proposed method are compared with those of some existing MCDM methods. The results of the analyses show that the proposed method is efficient to deal with MCDM problems.

A relevant challenge introduced by decentralized installations of photo-voltaic systems is the mismatch between green energy production and the load curve for domestic use. We advanced an ICT solution that maximizes the self-consumption by an intelligent scheduling of appliances. The predictive approach is complemented with a reactive one to minimize the short term effects due to prediction errors and to unforeseen loads. Using real measures, we demonstrated that such errors can be compensated modulating the usage of continuously running devices such as fridges and heat-pumps. Linear programming is used to dynamically compute in real-time the optimal control of these devices.

In this study, we evaluated the effects of the normalization procedures on decision outcomes of a given MADM method. For this aim, using the weights of a number of attributes calculated from FAHP method, we applied TOPSIS method to evaluate the financial performances of 13 Turkish deposit banks. In doing this, we used the most popular four normalization procedures. Our study revealed that vector normalization procedure, which is mostly used in the TOPSIS method by default, generated the most consistent results. Among the linear normalization procedures, max-min and max methods appeared as the possible alternatives to the vector normalization procedure.

As a means of supporting quality of service guarantees, aggregate multiplexing has attracted a lot of attention in the networking community, since it requires less complexity than flow-based scheduling. However, contrary to what happens in the case of flow-based multiplexing, few results are available for aggregate-based multiplexing. In this paper, we consider a server multiplexer fed by several flows and analyze the impact caused by traffic aggregation on the flows at the output of the server. No restriction is imposed on the server multiplexer other than the fact that it must operate in a work-conserving fashion. We characterize the best arrival curves that constrain the number of bits that leave the server, in any time interval, for each individual flow. These curves can be used to obtain the delays suffered by packets in complex scenarios where multiplexers are interconnected, as well as to determine the maximum size of the buffers in the different servers. Previous results provide tight delay bounds for networks where servers are of the FIFO type. Here, we provide tight bounds for any work-conserving scheduling policy, so that our results can be applied to heterogeneous networks where the servers (routers) can use different work-conserving scheduling policies such as First-In First-Out (FIFO), Earliest Deadline First (EDF), Strict Priority (SP), Guaranteed Rate scheduling (GR), etc.

The paper presents a fingerprint registration approach based on the decomposition of registration process into elementary stages. In each stage a single transformation parameter is eliminated. The algorithm uses composite features, i.e., lines connecting two minutiae instead of fingerprint minutiae. These features have rotation and translation-invariant attributes allowing feature filtering with significantly enhanced signal-to-noise ratio in feature consensus scheme. Experimental results of goal-directed performance evaluation with live-captured fingerprint image database are presented.