Stefan Voß

Georg Siedel, Silvia Vock, Andrey Morozov et al.

Robustness is a fundamental pillar of Machine Learning (ML) classifiers, substantially determining their reliability. Methods for assessing classifier robustness are therefore essential. In this work, we address the challenge of evaluating corruption robustness in a way that allows comparability and interpretability on a given dataset. We propose a test data augmentation method that uses a robustness distance $ε$ derived from the datasets minimal class separation distance. The resulting MSCR (minimal separation corruption robustness) metric allows a dataset-specific comparison of different classifiers with respect to their corruption robustness. The MSCR value is interpretable, as it represents the classifiers avoidable loss of accuracy due to statistical corruptions. On 2D and image data, we show that the metric reflects different levels of classifier robustness. Furthermore, we observe unexpected optima in classifiers robust accuracy through training and testing classifiers with different levels of noise. While researchers have frequently reported on a significant tradeoff on accuracy when training robust models, we strengthen the view that a tradeoff between accuracy and corruption robustness is not inherent. Our results indicate that robustness training through simple data augmentation can already slightly improve accuracy.

Jerry Swan, Steven Adriaensen, Alexander E. I. Brownlee et al.

Following decades of sustained improvement, metaheuristics are one of the great success stories of optimization research. However, in order for research in metaheuristics to avoid fragmentation and a lack of reproducibility, there is a pressing need for stronger scientific and computational infrastructure to support the development, analysis and comparison of new approaches. We argue that, via principled choice of infrastructure support, the field can pursue a higher level of scientific enquiry. We describe our vision and report on progress, showing how the adoption of common protocols for all metaheuristics can help liberate the potential of the field, easing the exploration of the design space of metaheuristics.

Leonard Heilig, Robert Stahlbock, Stefan Voß

With the new opportunities emerging from the current wave of digitalization, terminal planning and management need to be revisited by taking a data-driven perspective. Business analytics, as a practice of extracting insights from operational data, assists in reducing uncertainties using predictions and helps to identify and understand causes of inefficiencies, disruptions, and anomalies in intra- and inter-organizational terminal operations. Despite the growing complexity of data within and around container terminals, a lack of data-driven approaches in the context of container terminals can be identified. In this chapter, the concept of business analytics for supporting terminal planning and management is introduced. The chapter specifically focuses on data mining approaches and provides a comprehensive overview on applications in container terminals and related research. As such, we aim to establish a data-driven perspective on terminal planning and management, complementing the traditional optimization perspective.

Raka Jovanovic, Milan Tuba, Stefan Voss

In this paper we present a new population based metaheuristic called the fixed set search (FSS). The proposed approach represents a method of adding a learning mechanism to the greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP). The basic concept of FSS is to avoid focusing on specific high quality solutions but on parts or elements that such solutions have. This is done through fixing a set of elements that exist in such solutions and dedicating computational effort to finding near optimal solutions for the underlying subproblem. The simplicity of implementing the proposed method is illustrated on the traveling salesman problem. Our computational experiments show that the FSS manages to find significantly better solutions than the GRASP it is based on and also the dynamic convexized method.

Raka Jovanovic, Milan Tuba, Stefan Voss

In this paper we focus on finding high quality solutions for the problem of maximum partitioning of graphs with supply and demand (MPGSD). There is a growing interest for the MPGSD due to its close connection to problems appearing in the field of electrical distribution systems, especially for the optimization of self-adequacy of interconnected microgrids. We propose an ant colony optimization algorithm for the problem. With the goal of further improving the algorithm we combine it with a previously developed correction procedure. In our computational experiments we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm on both trees and general graphs. The tests show that the method manages to find optimal solutions in more than 50% of the problem instances, and has an average relative error of less than 0.5% when compared to known optimal solutions.

Raka Jovanovic, Abdelkader Bousselham, Stefan Voss

In this paper we present a greedy algorithm for solving the problem of the maximum partitioning of graphs with supply and demand (MPGSD). The goal of the method is to solve the MPGSD for large graphs in a reasonable time limit. This is done by using a two stage greedy algorithm, with two corresponding types of heuristics. The solutions acquired in this way are improved by applying a computationally inexpensive, hill climbing like, greedy correction procedure. In our numeric experiments we analyze different heuristic functions for each stage of the greedy algorithm, and show that their performance is highly dependent on the properties of the specific instance. Our tests show that by exploring a relatively small number of solutions generated by combining different heuristic functions, and applying the proposed correction procedure we can find solutions within only a few percent of the optimal ones.