Optimization methods have been developed and refined throughout many scientific fields of study. This work utilizes one such developed technique of optimization called simulated annealing to produce optimal operation parameters for a 15x15 fuel assembly to be used in an operating nuclear power reactor. The two main cases of optimization are: one that finds the optimal 235U enrichment layout of the fuel pins in the assembly and another that finds both the optimal 235U enrichments where gadolinium burnable absorber pins are also inserted. Both of these optimizations can be performed by coupling Adaptive Simulated Annealing to TransLAT which successfully searches the optimization space for a fuel assembly layout that produces the minimized pin power peaking factor. Within given time constraints this package produces optimal layouts within a given set of assumptions and constraints. Each layout is forced to maintain the fuel assembly average 235U enrichment as a constraint. Reductions in peaking factors that are produced through this method are on the order of 2% to 3% when compared to the baseline results. As with any simulated annealing approach, families of optimal layouts are produced that can be used at the engineer’s discretion.

The main purpose of this thesis is to estimate the signal arrival time in low rate wireless personal area network systems. In a dense multipath environment, the generalized maximum-likelihood (GML) algorithm can be used for the time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation. Nevertheless, the GML algorithm is very time-consuming and usually takes a long period of time, and sometimes fails to converge. Hence, a simplified scheme that would improve the algorithm is investigated. In the simplified scheme, the search is executed in a sequential form. Two threshold parameters are determined for the stop condition in the algorithm. One threshold is on the arrival time of estimated path, while the other is on the fading amplitude of estimated path. The determination of thresholds can be based on the minimum error probability, which is defined as the sum of the false alarm probability and the missing probability. Root-mean-square error statistics are used to improve the thresholds setting. In this scheme, candidate pairs of thresholds are evaluated in each appropriate range. To solve the problem that the root-mean-square error value for each pair of thresholds is calculated, the simulated annealing is adopted for searching the best threshold pair. The problem that all possible solutions in a large range must be evaluated can be solved by simulated annealing. From the simulation results, it is seen that, while the signal-to-noise ratio is larger or equal to 4dB, the proposed scheme can achieve better performance than the root-mean-square error statistics scheme.

The main purpose of this thesis is to combine modified GML algorithm with 2-D simulated annealing for estimation of signal arrival time in the UWB systems.In a dense multipath environment, the generalized maximum-likelihood (GML) algorithm can be used for the time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation. Nevertheless, the GML algorithm usually takes a long period of time, and sometimes fails to converge. Hence, a modified GML (MGML) algorithm is investigated. Two threshold parameters need to be determined in using the estimation algorithm. One threshold is to decide the arrival time range of estimated path, and the other, an amplitude threshold, is to judge whether the estimated path is true. Generally, the decision rule of thresholds may be based on the minimum error probability, which is defined as the sum of false alarm probability and miss probability. To mitigate the effects from noise and dense multipath interference, and to reduce the computational complexity of the algorithm, a method of threshold settings based on the minimum root mean square error (RMSE) criteria is discussed. In this scheme, the RMSE value for each candidate threshold pair in an appropriate region is computed. Constructing an accurate RMSE table and performing a full-scale grid search of adequate threshold settings can be very time-consuming. A 2-D simulated annealing process is adopted for finding the best pair of thresholds for use in the modified GML algorithm. The simulated annealing, different from the gradient descent, can avoid trapping into a local minimum in finding the best threshold pair. The resulting threshold pair makes the modified GML algorithm become more efficient in estimating the signal arrival time with an automatic search manner. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve better performance than the grid search approaches in UWB environments.

The manual trial and error has been widely used in the past, but such approach is inefficient. In recent years, many heuristic algorithms used in a wide range of applications have been developed. These algorithms have more efficiency than traditional ones, because they can locate the best solution. Every algorithm has its own niche application in different problems. In this study, the boundary parameters of the hydrodynamic-based tidal model are calibrated by using the Simulated Annealing algorithms (SA). The objective is to minimize the deviation between the estimated results acquired from the simulation model and the real tidal data along Taiwan coast. Based on the real physics distribution of the boundary parameters, we aimed to minimize the sum of each station¡¦s root mean square error (RMSE). Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Simulated Annealing Algorithms on parameters calibration for tidal model are compared under the same condition. GAs is superior on solving the problems mentioned above while both algorithms showed improved results. By setting the initial solution derived from GAs, the solving efficiency of SA can be improved in this study.

In this thesis, we consider joint beamforming, power, and channel allocation in a multi-user and multi-channel underlay cognitive radio network (CRN). In this system, beamforming is implemented at each SU-TX to minimize the co-channel interference. The formulated joint optimization problem is a non-convex, mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. We propose a solution which consists of two stages. At first, given a channel allocation, a feasible solutions for power and beamforming vectors are derived by converting the problem into a convex form with an introduced optimal auxiliary variable and semidefinite relaxation (SDR) approach. Next, two explicit searching algorithms, i.e., genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA)-based algorithm are proposed to determine optimal channel allocations. Simulation results show that beamforming, power and channel allocation with SA (BPCA-SA) algorithm achieves a close optimal sum-rate with a lower computational complexity compared with beamforming, power and channel allocation with GA (BPCA-GA) algorithm. Furthermore, our proposed allocation scheme shows significant improvement than zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF).

There is significant interest in the synthesis of discrete-state random fields, particularly those possessing structure over a wide range of scales. However, given a model on some finest, pixellated scale, it is computationally very difficult to synthesize both large and small-scale structures, motivating research into hierarchical methods. This thesis proposes a frozen-state approach to hierarchical modelling, in which simulated annealing is performed on each scale, constrained by the state estimates at the parent scale. The approach leads significant advantages in both modelling flexibility and computational complexity. In particular, a complex structure can be realized with very simple, local, scale-dependent models, and by constraining the domain to be annealed at finer scales to only the uncertain portions of coarser scales, the approach leads to huge improvements in computational complexity. Results are shown for synthesis problems in porous media.

Techn. University, Diss., 2006--Darmstadt.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-250).

Universiẗat, Diss.--Bremen, 2007.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 160 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-160).