A novel optimization approach towards improving separability of clusters
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Hoseini-Monjezi, Najmeh , Taheri, Sona
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computers and Operations Research Vol. 152, no. (2023), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The objective functions in optimization models of the sum-of-squares clustering problem reflect intra-cluster similarity and inter-cluster dissimilarities and in general, optimal values of these functions can be considered as appropriate measures for compactness of clusters. However, the use of the objective function alone may not lead to the finding of separable clusters. To address this shortcoming in existing models for clustering, we develop a new optimization model where the objective function is represented as a sum of two terms reflecting the compactness and separability of clusters. Based on this model we develop a two-phase incremental clustering algorithm. In the first phase, the clustering function is minimized to find compact clusters and in the second phase, a new model is applied to improve the separability of clusters. The Davies–Bouldin cluster validity index is applied as an additional measure to compare the compactness of clusters and silhouette coefficients are used to estimate the separability of clusters. The performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated and compared with that of four other algorithms using synthetic and real-world data sets. Numerical results clearly show that in comparison with other algorithms the new algorithm is able to find clusters with better separability and similar compactness. © 2022
Bundle enrichment method for nonsmooth difference of convex programming problems
- Authors: Gaudioso, Manilo , Taheri, Sona , Bagirov, Adil , Karmitsa, Napsu
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Algorithms Vol. 16, no. 8 (2023), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
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- Description: The Bundle Enrichment Method (BEM-DC) is introduced for solving nonsmooth difference of convex (DC) programming problems. The novelty of the method consists of the dynamic management of the bundle. More specifically, a DC model, being the difference of two convex piecewise affine functions, is formulated. The (global) minimization of the model is tackled by solving a set of convex problems whose cardinality depends on the number of linearizations adopted to approximate the second DC component function. The new bundle management policy distributes the information coming from previous iterations to separately model the DC components of the objective function. Such a distribution is driven by the sign of linearization errors. If the displacement suggested by the model minimization provides no sufficient decrease of the objective function, then the temporary enrichment of the cutting plane approximation of just the first DC component function takes place until either the termination of the algorithm is certified or a sufficient decrease is achieved. The convergence of the BEM-DC method is studied, and computational results on a set of academic test problems with nonsmooth DC objective functions are provided. © 2023 by the authors.
Finding compact and well-separated clusters : clustering using silhouette coefficients
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Aliguliyev, Ramiz , Sultanova, Nargiz
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Pattern Recognition Vol. 135, no. (2023), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Finding compact and well-separated clusters in data sets is a challenging task. Most clustering algorithms try to minimize certain clustering objective functions. These functions usually reflect the intra-cluster similarity and inter-cluster dissimilarity. However, the use of such functions alone may not lead to the finding of well-separated and, in some cases, compact clusters. Therefore additional measures, called cluster validity indices, are used to estimate the true number of well-separated and compact clusters. Some of these indices are well-suited to be included into the optimization model of the clustering problem. Silhouette coefficients are among such indices. In this paper, a new optimization model of the clustering problem is developed where the clustering function is used as an objective and silhouette coefficients are used to formulate constraints. Then an algorithm, called CLUSCO (CLustering Using Silhouette COefficients), is designed to construct clusters incrementally. Three schemes are discussed to reduce the computational complexity of the algorithm. Its performance is evaluated using fourteen real-world data sets and compared with that of three state-of-the-art clustering algorithms. Results show that the CLUSCO is able to compute compact clusters which are significantly better separable in comparison with those obtained by other algorithms. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
Methods and applications of clusterwise linear regression : a survey and comparison
- Authors: Long, Qiang , Bagirov, Adil , Taheri, Sona , Sultanova, Nargiz , Wu, Xue
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data Vol. 17, no. 3 (2023), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Clusterwise linear regression (CLR) is a well-known technique for approximating a data using more than one linear function. It is based on the combination of clustering and multiple linear regression methods. This article provides a comprehensive survey and comparative assessments of CLR including model formulations, description of algorithms, and their performance on small to large-scale synthetic and real-world datasets. Some applications of the CLR algorithms and possible future research directions are also discussed. © 2023 Association for Computing Machinery.
Nonsmooth optimization-based hyperparameter-free neural networks for large-scale regression
- Authors: Karmitsa, Napsu , Taheri, Sona , Joki, Kaisa , Paasivirta, Pauliina , Defterdarovic, J. , Bagirov, Adil , Mäkelä, Marko
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Algorithms Vol. 16, no. 9 (2023), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
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- Description: In this paper, a new nonsmooth optimization-based algorithm for solving large-scale regression problems is introduced. The regression problem is modeled as fully-connected feedforward neural networks with one hidden layer, piecewise linear activation, and the (Formula presented.) -loss functions. A modified version of the limited memory bundle method is applied to minimize this nonsmooth objective. In addition, a novel constructive approach for automated determination of the proper number of hidden nodes is developed. Finally, large real-world data sets are used to evaluate the proposed algorithm and to compare it with some state-of-the-art neural network algorithms for regression. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm as a predictive tool in most data sets used in numerical experiments. © 2023 by the authors.
Nonsmooth optimization-based model and algorithm for semisupervised clustering
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Taheri, Sona , Bai, Fusheng , Zheng, Fangying
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems Vol. 34, no. 9 (2023), p. 5517-5530
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Using a nonconvex nonsmooth optimization approach, we introduce a model for semisupervised clustering (SSC) with pairwise constraints. In this model, the objective function is represented as a sum of three terms: the first term reflects the clustering error for unlabeled data points, the second term expresses the error for data points with must-link (ML) constraints, and the third term represents the error for data points with cannot-link (CL) constraints. This function is nonconvex and nonsmooth. To find its optimal solutions, we introduce an adaptive SSC (A-SSC) algorithm. This algorithm is based on the combination of the nonsmooth optimization method and an incremental approach, which involves the auxiliary SSC problem. The algorithm constructs clusters incrementally starting from one cluster and gradually adding one cluster center at each iteration. The solutions to the auxiliary SSC problem are utilized as starting points for solving the nonconvex SSC problem. The discrete gradient method (DGM) of nonsmooth optimization is applied to solve the underlying nonsmooth optimization problems. This method does not require subgradient evaluations and uses only function values. The performance of the A-SSC algorithm is evaluated and compared with four benchmarking SSC algorithms on one synthetic and 12 real-world datasets. Results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other four algorithms in identifying compact and well-separated clusters while satisfying most constraints. © 2021 IEEE.
High activity and high functional connectivity are mutually exclusive in resting state zebrafish and human brains
- Authors: Zarei, Mahdi , Xie, Dan , Jiang, Fei , Bagirov, Adil , Huang, Bo , Raj, Ashish , Nagarajan, Srikantan , Guo, Su
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: BMC Biology Vol. 20, no. 1 (2022), p. 84-84
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- Description: The structural connectivity of neurons in the brain allows active neurons to impact the physiology of target neuron types with which they are functionally connected. While the structural connectome is at the basis of functional connectome, it is the functional connectivity measured through correlations between time series of individual neurophysiological events that underlies behavioral and mental states. However, in light of the diverse neuronal cell types populating the brain and their unique connectivity properties, both neuronal activity and functional connectivity are heterogeneous across the brain, and the nature of their relationship is not clear. Here, we employ brain-wide calcium imaging at cellular resolution in larval zebrafish to understand the principles of resting state functional connectivity. We recorded the spontaneous activity of >12,000 neurons in the awake resting state forebrain. By classifying their activity (i.e., variances of ΔF/F across time) and functional connectivity into three levels (high, medium, low), we find that highly active neurons have low functional connections and highly connected neurons are of low activity. This finding holds true when neuronal activity and functional connectivity data are classified into five instead of three levels, and in whole brain spontaneous activity datasets. Moreover, such activity-connectivity relationship is not observed in randomly shuffled, noise-added, or simulated datasets, suggesting that it reflects an intrinsic brain network property. Intriguingly, deploying the same analytical tools on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from the resting state human brain, we uncover a similar relationship between activity (signal variance over time) and functional connectivity, that is, regions of high activity are non-overlapping with those of high connectivity. We found a mutually exclusive relationship between high activity (signal variance over time) and high functional connectivity of neurons in zebrafish and human brains. These findings reveal a previously unknown and evolutionarily conserved brain organizational principle, which has implications for understanding disease states and designing artificial neuronal networks.
Missing value imputation via clusterwise linear regression
- Authors: Karmitsa, Napsu , Taheri, Sona , Bagirov, Adil , Makinen, Pauliina
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: IEEE transactions on knowledge and data engineering Vol. 34, no. 4 (2020), p. 1889-1901
- Full Text: false
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- Description:
In this paper a new method of preprocessing incomplete data is introduced. The method is based on clusterwise linear regression and it combines two well-known approaches for missing value imputation: linear regression and clustering. The idea is to approximate missing values using only those data points that are somewhat similar to the incomplete data point. A similar idea is used also in clustering based imputation methods. Nevertheless, here the linear regression approach is used within each cluster to accurately predict the missing values, and this is done simultaneously to clustering. The proposed method is tested using some synthetic and real-world data sets and compared with other algorithms for missing value imputations. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method produces the most accurate imputations in MCAR and MAR data sets with a clear structure and the percentages of missing data no more than 25%
Robust piecewise linear L 1-regression via nonsmooth DC optimization
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Taheri, Sona , Karmitsa, Napsu , Sultanova, Nargiz , Asadi, Soodabeh
- Date: 2022
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Optimization Methods and Software Vol. 37, no. 4 (2022), p. 1289-1309
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Piecewise linear (Formula presented.) -regression problem is formulated as an unconstrained difference of convex (DC) optimization problem and an algorithm for solving this problem is developed. Auxiliary problems are introduced to design an adaptive approach to generate a suitable piecewise linear regression model and starting points for solving the underlying DC optimization problems. The performance of the proposed algorithm as both approximation and prediction tool is evaluated using synthetic and real-world data sets containing outliers. It is also compared with mainstream machine learning regression algorithms using various performance measures. Results demonstrate that the new algorithm is robust to outliers and in general, provides better predictions than the other alternative regression algorithms for most data sets used in the numerical experiments. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Aggregate subgradient method for nonsmooth DC optimization
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Taheri, Sona , Joki, Kaisa , Karmitsa, Napsu , Mäkelä, Marko
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Optimization Letters Vol. 15, no. 1 (2021), p. 83-96
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
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- Description: The aggregate subgradient method is developed for solving unconstrained nonsmooth difference of convex (DC) optimization problems. The proposed method shares some similarities with both the subgradient and the bundle methods. Aggregate subgradients are defined as a convex combination of subgradients computed at null steps between two serious steps. At each iteration search directions are found using only two subgradients: the aggregate subgradient and a subgradient computed at the current null step. It is proved that the proposed method converges to a critical point of the DC optimization problem and also that the number of null steps between two serious steps is finite. The new method is tested using some academic test problems and compared with several other nonsmooth DC optimization solvers. © 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
An augmented subgradient method for minimizing nonsmooth DC functions
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Hoseini Monjezi, Najmeh , Taheri, Sona
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computational Optimization and Applications Vol. 80, no. 2 (2021), p. 411-438
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: A method, called an augmented subgradient method, is developed to solve unconstrained nonsmooth difference of convex (DC) optimization problems. At each iteration of this method search directions are found by using several subgradients of the first DC component and one subgradient of the second DC component of the objective function. The developed method applies an Armijo-type line search procedure to find the next iteration point. It is proved that the sequence of points generated by the method converges to a critical point of the unconstrained DC optimization problem. The performance of the method is demonstrated using academic test problems with nonsmooth DC objective functions and its performance is compared with that of two general nonsmooth optimization solvers and five solvers specifically designed for unconstrained DC optimization. Computational results show that the developed method is efficient and robust for solving nonsmooth DC optimization problems. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Analysis of water quantity and quality trade-offs to inform selective harvesting of inflows in complex water resource systems
- Authors: Dey, Sayani , Barton, Andrew , Kandra, Harpreet , Bagirov, Adil , Wilson, Kym
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Water Resources Management Vol. 35, no. 12 (2021), p. 4149-4165
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Challenges faced by water resource systems are multi-faceted. The problem can be even more pronounced in a dry continent like Australia where the water resources can often be afflicted by high salinity and turbidity. Therefore, modern water resource systems require to appropriately manage both water quality and quantity. This study aims to illustrate the trade-offs between water quantity and quality in a reservoir, based on decisions to harvest different inflow sources. Taylors Lake of the Grampians reservoir system in Western Victoria, Australia was chosen as the case study for this research as it is sufficiently complex and includes many of the contemporary water resources challenges seen around the world. Different operational scenarios were analysed which included increasingly stringent water quality criteria before the water was harvested or otherwise allowed to by-pass the storage. The study suggests that selective harvesting of water can be an option to improve the overall and long-term water quality within a reservoir, but stringent water quality measures can lead to an associated loss of overall water quantity. This research study provides useful insight to water planners and stakeholders in similar catchment settings around the world, to identify water harvesting regimes with competing water quality constraints. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. Correction to: Analysis of Water Quantity and Quality Trade‑Offs to Inform Selective Harvesting of Inflows in Complex Water Resource Systems (Water Resources Management, (2021), 35, 12, (4149-4165), 10.1007/s11269-021-02936-x)
Incremental DC optimization algorithm for large-scale clusterwise linear regression
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Taheri, Sona , Cimen, Emre
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics Vol. 389, no. (2021), p. 1-17
- Relation: https://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The objective function in the nonsmooth optimization model of the clusterwise linear regression (CLR) problem with the squared regression error is represented as a difference of two convex functions. Then using the difference of convex algorithm (DCA) approach the CLR problem is replaced by the sequence of smooth unconstrained optimization subproblems. A new algorithm based on the DCA and the incremental approach is designed to solve the CLR problem. We apply the Quasi-Newton method to solve the subproblems. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using several synthetic and real-world data sets for regression and compared with other algorithms for CLR. Results demonstrate that the DCA based algorithm is efficient for solving CLR problems with the large number of data points and in particular, outperforms other algorithms when the number of input variables is small. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
Malware variant identification using incremental clustering
- Authors: Black, Paul , Gondal, Iqbal , Bagirov, Adil , Moniruzzaman, Md
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Electronics Vol. 10, no. 14 (2021), p.
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
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An incremental nonsmooth optimization algorithm for clustering using L1 and L∞ norms
- Authors: Ordin, Burak , Bagirov, Adil , Mohebi, Ehsam
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization Vol. 16, no. 6 (2020), p. 2757-2779
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: An algorithm is developed for solving clustering problems with the similarity measure defined using the L1and L∞ norms. It is based on an incremental approach and applies nonsmooth optimization methods to find cluster centers. Computational results on 12 data sets are reported and the proposed algorithm is compared with the X-means algorithm. ©
Clusterwise support vector linear regression
- Authors: Joki, Kaisa , Bagirov, Adil , Karmitsa, Napsu , Mäkelä, Marko , Taheri, Sona
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: European Journal of Operational Research Vol. 287, no. 1 (2020), p. 19-35
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- Description: In clusterwise linear regression (CLR), the aim is to simultaneously partition data into a given number of clusters and to find regression coefficients for each cluster. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to model and solve the CLR problem. The main idea is to utilize the support vector machine (SVM) approach to model the CLR problem by using the SVM for regression to approximate each cluster. This new formulation of the CLR problem is represented as an unconstrained nonsmooth optimization problem, where we minimize a difference of two convex (DC) functions. To solve this problem, a method based on the combination of the incremental algorithm and the double bundle method for DC optimization is designed. Numerical experiments are performed to validate the reliability of the new formulation for CLR and the efficiency of the proposed method. The results show that the SVM approach is suitable for solving CLR problems, especially, when there are outliers in data. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
- Description: Funding details: Academy of Finland, 289500, 294002, 319274 Funding details: Turun Yliopisto Funding details: Australian Research Council, ARC, (Project no. DP190100580 ).
Cyberattack triage using incremental clustering for intrusion detection systems
- Authors: Taheri, Sona , Bagirov, Adil , Gondal, Iqbal , Brown, Simon
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Information Security Vol. 19, no. 5 (2020), p. 597-607
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190100580
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- Description: Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are devices or software applications that monitor networks or systems for malicious activities and signals alerts/alarms when such activity is discovered. However, an IDS may generate many false alerts which affect its accuracy. In this paper, we develop a cyberattack triage algorithm to detect these alerts (so-called outliers). The proposed algorithm is designed using the clustering, optimization and distance-based approaches. An optimization-based incremental clustering algorithm is proposed to find clusters of different types of cyberattacks. Using a special procedure, a set of clusters is divided into two subsets: normal and stable clusters. Then, outliers are found among stable clusters using an average distance between centroids of normal clusters. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using the well-known IDS data sets—Knowledge Discovery and Data mining Cup 1999 and UNSW-NB15—and compared with some other existing algorithms. Results show that the proposed algorithm has a high detection accuracy and its false negative rate is very low. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
- Description: This research was conducted in Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) funded by Westpac Banking Corporation Australia. In addition, the research by Dr. Sona Taheri and A/Prof. Adil Bagirov was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (DP190100580).
New gene selection algorithm using hypeboxes to improve performance of classifiers
- Authors: Bagirov, Adil , Mardaneh, Karim
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications Vol. 16, no. 3 (2020), p. 269-289
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The use of DNA microarray technology allows to measure the expression levels of thousands of genes in one single experiment which makes possible to apply classification techniques to classify tumours. However, the large number of genes and relatively small number of tumours in gene expression datasets may (and in some cases significantly) diminish the accuracy of many classifiers. Therefore, efficient gene selection algorithms are required to identify most informative genes or groups of genes to improve the performance of classifiers. In this paper, a new gene selection algorithm is developed using marginal hyberboxes of genes or groups of genes for each tumour type. Informative genes are defined using overlaps between hyberboxes. The results on six gene expression datasets demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to considerably reduce the number of genes and significantly improve the performance of classifiers. © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Prediction of gold-bearing localised occurrences from limited exploration data
- Authors: Grigoryev, Igor , Bagirov, Adil , Tuck, Michael
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering Vol. 21, no. 4 (2020), p. 503-512
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Inaccurate drill-core assay interpretation in the exploration stage presents challenges to long-term profit of gold mining operations. Predicting the gold distribution within a deposit as precisely as possible is one of the most important aspects of the methodologies employed to avoid problems associated with financial expectations. The prediction of the variability of gold using a very limited number of drill-core samples is a very challenging problem. This is often intractable using traditional statistical tools where with less than complete spatial information certain assumptions are made about gold distribution and mineralisation. The decision-support predictive modelling methodology based on the unsupervised machine learning technique, presented in this paper avoids some of the restrictive limitations of traditional methods. It identifies promising exploration targets missed during exploration and recovers hidden spatial and physical characteristics of the explored deposit using information directly from drill hole database. Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
The non-smooth and bi-objective team orienteering problem with soft constraints
- Authors: Estrada-Moreno, Alejandro , Ferrer, Albert , Juan, Angel , Panadero, Javier , Bagirov, Adil
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Mathematics Vol. 8, no. 9 (2020), p.
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- Description: In the classical team orienteering problem (TOP), a fixed fleet of vehicles is employed, each of them with a limited driving range. The manager has to decide about the subset of customers to visit, as well as the visiting order (routes). Each customer offers a different reward, which is gathered the first time that it is visited. The goal is then to maximize the total reward collected without exceeding the driving range constraint. This paper analyzes a more realistic version of the TOP in which the driving range limitation is considered as a soft constraint: every time that this range is exceeded, a penalty cost is triggered. This cost is modeled as a piece-wise function, which depends on factors such as the distance of the vehicle to the destination depot. As a result, the traditional reward-maximization objective becomes a non-smooth function. In addition, a second objective, regarding the design of balanced routing plans, is considered as well. A mathematical model for this non-smooth and bi-objective TOP is provided, and a biased-randomized algorithm is proposed as a solving approach. © 2020 by the authors.
- Description: This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness & FEDER (SEV-2015-0563), the Spanish Ministry of Science (PID2019-111100RB-C21, RED2018-102642-T), and the Erasmus+ Program (2019-I-ES01-KA103-062602).