A fuzzy stochastic approach to the multicriteria selection of an aircraft for regional chartering

This article deals with the problem of decision support for the selection of an aircraft. This is a problem faced by an airline company that is investing in regional charter flights in Brazil. The company belongs to an economic group whose core business is logistics. The problem has eight alternatives to be evaluated under 11 different criteria, whose measurements can be exact, stochastic, or fuzzy. The technique chosen for analyzing and then finding a solution to the problem is the multicriteria decision aiding method named NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments). The method used allows tackling the problems by working with quantitative as well as qualitative criteria under uncertainty and imprecision. Another considerable advantage of NAIADE over other multicriteria methods relies in its characteristics of not requiring a prior definition of the weights by the decision maker. As a conclusion, it can be said that the use of NAIADE provided for consistent results to that aircraft selection problem. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic routing-and-inventory problems: a review

The paper presents a review of the available literature on a class of problems denoted as dynamic routing-and-inventory (DRAl) problems. They are characterized by the simultaneous relevance of routing and of inventory issues in a dynamic environment, within the framework of distribution logistics. A classification scheme is first proposed for these problems. Then the results obtained in this area are summarized. Finally, the papers available in the literature are clustered and discussed according to the proposed scheme.     

Stationary ultracapacitors storage device for improving energy saving and voltage profile of light transportation networks

The installation of stationary ultracapacitor storage devices, as widely recognized, allows the recovery of the braking energy for increasing the energy efficiency as well as a better pantograph voltage profile. In the paper a new methodological mean is proposed for determining the fundamental characteristics of this kind of storage device, characterized by high power density, interfaced with the railroad by a bidirectional dc-dc converter. More specifically, the parameters of the storage system can be determined by employing an optimization technique which in a quite general way is able to take contemporaneously into account several aspects in an integrated manner. Some considerations are performed for properly taking into account the stochastic aspects of the design procedure. Numerical simulations with respect to a case study are presented, pointing out the potentiality of the tailored technique. Experimental results are also reported, with reference to an electromechanical simulator, in order to put in evidence the effectiveness and the actual implementation of the proposed optimization technique.