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Julien Lepagnot (Eds.)
LNCS 8472

Swarm Intelligence
Based Optimization
First International Conference, ICSIBO 2014
Mulhouse, France, May 13–14, 2014
Revised Selected Papers

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8472
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Patrick Siarry · Lhassane Idoumghar
Julien Lepagnot (Eds.)

Swarm Intelligence
Based Optimization
First International Conference, ICSIBO 2014
Mulhouse, France, May 13–14, 2014
Revised Selected Papers

ABC
Editors
Patrick Siarry Julien Lepagnot
Univ. Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), LISSI Université de Haute-Alsace, LMIA
Vitry Sur Seine Mulhouse
France France

Lhassane Idoumghar
Université de Haute-Alsace, LMIA-INRIA
Grand Est
Mulhouse
France

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)


Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-319-12969-3 ISBN 978-3-319-12970-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-12970-9

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Preface

These post-proceedings include a selection of the best papers presented at the Inter-
national Conference on Swarm Intelligence-Based Optimization, ICSIBO 2014, held
in Mulhouse (France). ICSIBO 2014 is a continuation of the conferences OEP 2003
(Paris), OEP 2007 (Paris), and ICSI 2011 (Cergy-Pontoise).
Each submitted paper was reviewed by three members of the international Program
Committee. Among the 48 submissions received, 26 were selected for oral presenta-
tion. The authors of these accepted submissions sent revised versions of their papers.
From a second reviewing process, 20 revised submissions were accepted in these post-
proceedings. Accordingly, the acceptance rate for the post-proceedings was 41.67%.
The aim of ICSIBO 2014 is to highlight the theoretical progress of swarm intel-
ligence metaheuristics and their applications. Swarm intelligence is a computational
intelligence technique involving the study of collective behavior in decentralized sys-
tems. Such systems are made up of a population of simple individuals interacting locally
with one another and with their environment. Although there is generally no centralized
control on the behavior of individuals, local interactions among individuals often cause
a global pattern to emerge. Examples of such systems can be found in nature, including
ant colonies, animal herding, bacteria foraging, bee swarms, and many more.
The authors were invited to present original work relevant to swarm intelligence,
including, but not limited to: theoretical advances of swarm intelligence metaheuristics;
combinatorial, discrete, binary, constrained, multi-objective, multi-modal, dynamic,
noisy, and large-scale optimization; artificial immune systems, particle swarms, ant
colony, bacterial foraging, artificial bees, fireflies algorithm; hybridization of algorithms;
parallel/distributed computing, machine learning, data mining, data clustering, decision
making and multi-agent systems based on swarm intelligence principles; adaptation
and applications of swarm intelligence principles to real-world problems in various do-
mains.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our invited speakers Maurice Clerc
and Nicolas Monmarché. The success of the conference resulted from the input of many
people to whom we would like to express our appreciation: the members of Program
Committee and the secondary reviewers for their careful reviews that ensured the qual-
ity of the selected papers and of the conference. We take this opportunity to thank
the different partners whose financial and material support contributed to the organiza-
tion of the conference: Université de Haute-Alsace, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques,
ROADEF, GDR-MACS. Last but not least, we thank all the authors who submitted their
research papers to the conference, and the authors of accepted papers who attended the
conference to present their work. Thank you all.

August 2014 Patrick Siarry


Lhassane Idoumghar
Julien Lepagnot
Organization

Organizing Committee Chairs


Patrick Siarry Université de Paris-Est Créteil, France
Lhassane Idoumghar Université de Haute-Alsace, France
Julien Lepagnot Université de Haute-Alsace, France
Program Chair
Maurice Clerc Independent Consultant, France

Website/Proceedings/Administration

MAGE Team, LMIA Laboratory, France

Program Committee
Ajith Abraham Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway
Amitava Chatterjee Jadavpur University, India
Raymond Chiong University of Newcastle, Australia
Maurice Clerc Independent Consultant, France
Carlos A. Coello Coello CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico
Pierre Collet Université de Strasbourg, France
Jean-Charles Créput Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard,
France
Luca Di Gaspero University of Udine, Italy
Fréderic Guinand Université du Havre, France
Rachid Ellaia Mohammadia School of Engineering, Morocco
Said Hanafi Université de Valenciennes, France
Jin-Kao Hao Université d’Angers, France
Vincent Hilaire Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard,
France
Lhassane Idoumghar Université de Haute-Alsace, France
Jim Kennedy Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA
Peter Korosec University of Primorska, Slovenia
Abderrafiaâ Koukam Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard,
France
Mohamed G. Omran Gulf University for Science and Technology,
Kuwait
Fred Glover OptTek Systems, Inc., USA
VIII Organization

Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi Indian Institute of Technology, India


Fabrice Lauri Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard,
France
Stéphane Le Menec RGNC at EADS/MBDA, France
Julien Lepagnot Université de Haute-Alsace, France
Nicolas Monmarché Université François Rabelais, France
René Natowicz ESIEE, France
Abraham P. Punnen Simon Fraser University, Canada
Monia Rekik Université Laval, Canada
Said Salhi CLHO, Kent Business School, UK
Andrea Schaerf DIEGM, University of Udine, Italy
René Schott University of Lorraine, France
Patrick Siarry Université de Paris-Est Créteil, France
Ponnuthurai N. Suganthan Science and Technology University, Singapore
Eric Taillard University of Applied Sciences of Western
Switzerland, Switzerland
El-Ghazali Talbi Polytech’Lille, Université de Lille 1, France
Antonios Tsourdos Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, UK
Mohamed Wakrim University of Ibou Zohr, Agadir, Morocco
Rolf Wanka University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Contents

Combining PSO and FCM for Dynamic Fuzzy Clustering Problems . . . . . . . 1


Yucheng Kao, Ming-Hsien Chen, and Kai-Ming Hsieh

Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem


with Sequence-Dependent Setup Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Aymen Sioud, Caroline Gagné, and Marc Gravel

Using Particle Swarm Optimization Method to Invert Active Surface


Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Rashed Poormirzaee and Rasoul Hamidzadeh Moghadam

A Fuzzy-Controlled Comprehensive Learning Particle Swarm Optimizer. . . . 35


Mahamed G.H. Omran, Maurice Clerc, Ayed Salman,
and Salah Alsharhan

Fuzzy Logic Control Optimized by Artificial Immune System for Building


Thermal Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Jiawei Zhu, Fabrice Lauri, Abderrafiaa Koukam, and Vincent Hilaire

Smooth Trajectory Planning for Robot Using Particle Swarm Optimization . . . 50


Riad Menasri, Hamouche Oulhadj, Boubaker Daachi, Amir Nakib,
and Patrick Siarry

Multi-level Parallelization for Hybrid ACO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60


Omar Abdelkafi, Julien Lepagnot, and Lhassane Idoumghar

Parallel and Distributed Implementation Models for Bio-inspired


Optimization Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Hongjian Wang and Jean-Charles Créput

Using Bio-inspired Algorithm to Compensate Web Page Color Contrast


for Dichromat Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Alina Mereuta, Sébastien Aupetit, Nicolas Monmarché, and Mohamed Slimane

Comparison of Two Swarm Intelligence Optimization Algorithms


on the Textual Color Problem for Web Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Sébastien Aupetit, Nicolas Monmarché, and Mohamed Slimane

How Much Forcing Is Necessary to Let the Results of Particle


Swarms Converge? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Bernd Bassimir, Manuel Schmitt, and Rolf Wanka
X Contents

The Use of Ontology in Semantic Analysis of the Published Learners


Messages for Adaptability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Samia Ait Adda and Amar Balla

A Hybrid PSO Applied to the Flexible Job Shop with Transport . . . . . . . . . 115
Laurent Deroussi

Multiple Mobile Target Tracking in Wireless Sensor Networks . . . . . . . . . . 123


Charly Lersteau, Marc Sevaux, and André Rossi

Swarm Projects: Beyond the Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131


Pierre Parrend, Pierre Masai, Cecilia Zanni-Merk, and Pierre Collet

An Enhanced Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm Combined


with Neural Networks to Decrease Computational Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Cédric Leboucher, Patrick Siarry, Stéphane Le Ménec, Hyo-Sang Shin,
Rachid Chelouah, and Antonios Tsourdos

Robust Multi-agent Patrolling Strategies Using Reinforcement Learning . . . . 157


Fabrice Lauri and Abderrafiaa Koukam

BSG-Starcraft Radius Improvements of Particle Swarm


Optimization Algorithm: An Application to Ceramic Matrix Composites. . . . 166
Dominique Chamoret, Sébastien Salmon, Noelie Di Cesare,
and Yingjie J. Xu

An Efficient ACO-SA Hybrid Metaheuristic for the Synchronization


of Single Frequency Networks in Broadcasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Akram Bedoui, Philippe Debreux, and Thierry Schott

Floods Trajectories Modeling and Dynamic Relief Planning:


A Bees Foraging Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Kawther Hmaidi and Jalel Akaichi

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193


Combining PSO and FCM for Dynamic Fuzzy
Clustering Problems

Yucheng Kao(B) , Ming-Hsien Chen, and Kai-Ming Hsieh

Department of Information Management, Tatung University,


No. 40, Sec. 3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Taipei, Taiwan
ykao@ttu.edu.tw

Abstract. This paper proposes a dynamic data clustering algorithm,


called PSOFC, in which Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is combined
with the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering method to find the number of
clusters and cluster centers concurrently. Fuzzy c-means can be applied
to data clustering problems but the number of clusters must be given
in advance. This paper tries to overcome this shortcoming. In the evolu-
tionary process of PSOFC, a discrete PSO is used to search for the best
number of clusters. With a specified number of cluster, each particle
employs FCM to refine cluster centers for data clustering. Thus PSOFC
can automatically determine the best number of clusters during the data
clustering process. Six datasets were used to evaluate the proposed algo-
rithm. Experimental results demonstrated that PSOFC is an effective
algorithm for solving dynamic fuzzy clustering problems.

Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization · Fuzzy c-means · Data


Clustering

1 Introduction
Data clustering aims to discover meaningful organization of data points in a
data set in terms of their similarities and dissimilarities. A good clustering algo-
rithm can classify a set of data points into several distinct clusters such that
the members of a cluster are highly similar while the data points belonging to
different clusters are dissimilar. Data clustering is an important data mining
technique and has been studied in several fields such as pattern recognition,
machine learning, market segmentation, bioinformatics, and so on.
Data clustering approaches can be roughly classified into two main categories:
hierarchical clustering and partitional (non-hierarchical) clustering [3]. Parti-
tional clustering methods require the number of clusters to be given beforehand
and use an iterative algorithm to find out the best cluster centers for classify-
ing data points into appropriate clusters. K-means and fuzzy c-means [2] are
well-known partitional clustering methods. K-means is for crisp clustering while
FCM is for fuzzy clustering. When using a partitional clustering approach, we
have to provide the number of clusters and initial cluster centers in advance.
Initial cluster centers can be randomly determined, but it is difficult for us to

c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
P. Siarry et al. (Eds.): ICSIBO 2014, LNCS 8472, pp. 1–8, 2014.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-12970-9 1
2 Y. Kao et al.

decide the best number of clusters in priori unless we understand the character-
istics of data sets very well. To overcome the drawback of partitional clustering,
several papers have proposed different approaches, such as genetic algorithm
(GA)-based approach [1] and PSO-based approach [8].
This paper proposes a PSO-based fuzzy clustering (PSOFC) approach to deal
with dynamic clustering problems. When running PSOFC, we only need to give
a maximum possible cluster number in priori. In the evolutionary process, each
particle selects its own best number of clusters and refines the corresponding
cluster centers using fuzzy c-means. We use a clustering validity index to evalu-
ate the clustering results of particles, which in turn are used to direct the search
directions of particles. The experimental results show that PSOFC can effec-
tively find the best clustering results, compared with current dynamic clustering
algorithms.

2 Background

In this section, we introduce the PSO algorithm, fuzzy c-means, and a cluster
validity measure (PBM Index).

2.1 Particle Swarm Optimization

PSO was originally proposed by Kennedy and Eberhart in 1995 [5]. The concept
of PSO follows a biological swarm behavior model which was inspired by the
behavior of birds searching for food sources. When birds are foraging for food,
they memorize past best positions and exchange the message of best positions
with each other so that all members can gradually fly toward the best target. In a
PSO algorithm, a candidate solution is called a particle. Each particle memorizes
two components: the personal best (pBest) and global best (gBest) positions. The
former is the best position that a particle has ever visited while the latter is the
best position that the whole swarm has ever experienced. A particle determines
its new velocity and position according to its current velocity, its pBest position
and the gBest position, as defined in Eqs. (1) and (2).

Vidt+1 = wt+1 × Vidt + c1 × rand() × (Pid


t
− Xid
t
) + c2 × rand() × (Pgd
t
− Xid
t
) (1)
t+1
Xid t
= Xid + Vidt+1 (2)
where Vi is the velocity of particle i, Xi is the position of particle i, Pi is pBest
of particle i, Pg is gBest of the particle swarm, c1 and c2 are positive constants,
rand() is a random number selected from [0.0, 1.0], d is the dimension index,
and t is the generation number.
The advantages of using PSO include fast convergence and fewer parameters
needed to be set. Some researchers have applied PSO to data clustering [6–8].
Combining PSO and FCM for Dynamic Fuzzy Clustering Problems 3

2.2 Fuzzy c-Means Clustering Algorithm


Fuzzy c-means is a clustering method similar to K-means but the concept of
fuzzy theory is incorporated to improve clustering results. That is, fuzzy c-means
allows that each data point belongs to more than one cluster according to their
fuzzy memberships. Assume we are going to classify n data objects into c groups,
the objective function used in FCM is defined below:


c 
n
2
Jm = um
ij [dist(ci , xj )] (3)
i=1 j=1

where ci is the center vector of cluster i, xj is data point j, uij is membership


degree of point xj related to cluster i, m is the fuzziness index and its value falls
in the range of [1, ∞], dist(ci , xj ) is Euclidean distance between data point j
and cluster center i.
The FCM algorithm contains following main steps:
Step 1: Initialize the parameters. Note that the values of uij are subject to the
following three conditions. Condition (a) means that the value of uij is a
real number ranged between 0 and 1. Condition (b) indicates that for a data
point, all of its uij values should be sum up to 1 . The last condition defines
that the sum of uij values for a cluster should be ranged between 0 and n.
(a) uij ∈ [0, 1] i = 1, 2, . . . , c and j = 1, 2, . . . n
c
(b) unij = 1 j = 1, . . . , n
i=1
(c) 0 < j=1 uij < n i = 1, . . . , c
Step2: Calculate the center vector of cluster i by Eq. (4).
n m
j=1 uij xj
ci = n m i = 1, . . . , c (4)
j=1 uij

Step3: Update the fuzzy membership matrix U by Eq. (5).


1
c  2/(m−1) i = 1, . . . , c and j = 1, . . . , n
uij = (5)
 dist(ci , xj )
dist(ck , xj )
k=1

Step4: Calculate Jm using Eq. (3) and check the stop criteria. If |Jm
t+1
−Jm
t
| < ε,
then stop the execution; otherwise go back to step 2.

2.3 Cluster Validity Measure


When solving a dynamic clustering problem, a validity index is used to deter-
mine the best clustering solution. A good validity measure considers the degrees
of compactness and separation in order to ensure that the optimal number of
clusters is found. This paper uses PBM Index as the cluster validity measure [9].
PBM formulas are defined as follows:
 2
1 E1
PBM(K) = × × DK (6)
K EK
4 Y. Kao et al.


n
E1 = dist(c0 , xj ) (7)
j=1


K 
K 
n
EK = Ek = um
kj dist(ck , xj ) (8)
k=1 k=1 j=1

DK = max(dist(cp , cq )) p, q = 1, . . . , K (9)
where K is the total number of clusters, E1 is the sum of the distances
between each data point and the geometric center of the data set (c0 ), xj is data
point j, c0 is the cluster center when the number of clusters is one, EK is the sum
of within-cluster distances of K clusters, and DK is the maximum separation
distance of each pair of cluster centers. Eq. (6) suggests that the higher the PBM
Index value, the better the clustering result.

3 PSOFC Clustering Algorithm


In PSOFC, we adopt a discrete PSO algorithm to search for a best number of
clusters and utilize the fuzzy c-means to find optimal cluster centers for data
clustering. The clustering result is evaluated by computing cluster validity index
PBM.

3.1 Solution Representation


PSOFC considers each particle as a candidate solution, which is composed of the
number of clusters and several cluster centers. The number of clusters is not given
in advance and must be determined at each iteration. Thus the lengths of particle
solutions are varied. The number of clusters should be within a reasonable range,
depending on the size of the data set. The minimum cluster number
√ (MinK ) is
set to 2, and the maximum cluster number (MaxK ) is set to n [10] [12]. The
solution representation of particle i with Ki = k is defined below:

Pi = [ Ki = k;
(xi11 , xi12 , . . . , xi1d ), (xi21 , xi22 , . . . , xi2d ), . . . , (xik1 , xik2 , . . . , xikd )]

where Xi11 is the first dimension of the first cluster center and d is the
dimension size of data points.

3.2 Initialization
First, each particle randomly determines its own cluster number Ki and initial
flying velocity Vi . Here, the value of Ki is selected from the interval of M inK and
M axK, i.e. M inK ≤ Ki ≤ M axK . The initial velocity is randomly selected
from the interval of −1 and 1. According to the specified cluster number, each
Combining PSO and FCM for Dynamic Fuzzy Clustering Problems 5

particle randomly selected Ki data points from the data set as its initial cluster
vectors. After that, each particle executes the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm
to refine cluster centers, and at last uses the Eq. (6) to calculate PBM value.
According to the PBM values, the best particle is determined and its cluster
number and cluster centers are the swarm best solution, i.e. gBest. Each particle
also memorizes its current solution as pBest.

3.3 Main Steps of the Evolution Process

There are four main steps in an iteration of PSOFC, which aims to find the best
number of clusters and the corresponding cluster centers.

Step 1: Evolving Ki values. As we know, determining the best number of


clusters for a clustering problem is a discrete optimization problem. There-
fore, a discrete PSO algorithm proposed by Jarboui et al. [4] is adopted to
determine the cluster number for each particle. The main concept is to con-
vert the number of clusters of particle i (Ki ) to a virtual space using a state
variable (Yi ) (see Eq. (10), to use a conventional PSO algorithm to compute
the new velocity and position of state variable Yi in the virtual space (see
Eqs. (11) and (12), and then to convert the state variable with a new value
back to the discrete space to get new Ki (see Eqs. (13) and (14)).


⎪ 1 if Kit = Pgt ,

−1 if Kit = Pit ,
Yit = (10)
⎪ −1or 1 if Kit = Pgt = Pit ,


0 otherwise.

Vit+1 = wt+1 × Vit + c1 × rand() × (−1 − Yit ) + c2 × rand() × (1 − Yit ) (11)

λt+1
i = Yit + Vit+1 (12)

⎨ 1 if λt+1 > αt+1 ,
Yit+1 = −1 if λt+1 < −αt+1 , (13)

0 otherwise.
⎧ t
⎨ Pg if Yit+1 = 1,
Kit+1 = Pit
if Yit+1 = −1, (14)

M inK ≤ RN ≤ M axK otherwise.
where Pgt is the past best cluster number of the particle swarm, Pit is the
past best cluster number of particle i, Yit is the state variable of particle i,
λti is the continuous version of Yit , α is a threshold value, RN is an integer
random number selected from the interval of (M inK, M axK).
6 Y. Kao et al.

Step 2: Selecting new cluster centers. It could happen to FCM to fall into
a local optimum if initial cluster centers are not well chosen. To avoid this
drawback, PSOCF changes cluster centers in different ways, depending on
the value of state variable Y . If Yit+1 = 1, particle i will replace its cluster
centers with those of the gBest particle. In addition, some cluster centers will
be randomly selected and substituted with data points randomly selected
from the input data set. If Yit+1 = −1, particle i will replace its cluster
centers with those of its pBest solution. The same, several cluster centers
will be randomly selected and replaced with data points randomly selected
from the input data set. If Yit+1 = 0, particle i will replace its all cluster
centers with Kit+1 data points randomly selected from the input data set.
Step 3: Refining cluster centers with FCM. When new cluster centers of
particle i are determined, PSOFC starts to refine the cluster centers using
FCM (see Eqs. (3), (4) and (5)).
Step 4: Updating pBest and gBest. After performing FCM, PSOCF calcu-
lates PBM Index value for each particle solution. Then the algorithm updates
the personal best solution for each particle and the global best solution for
the whole population according to their PBM Index values. At the end of an
iteration, termination condition is checked. If the maximum iteration num-
ber is reached, then stop running the algorithm; otherwise, go back to step
1 to continue next iteration.

Table 1. Dataset Information

Number of Number of Actual number


Dataset Attributes points of clusters
Data 4 3 3 400 4
Data 4 2 2 80 4
Data 5 2 2 250 5
Date 6 2 2 300 6
Iris 4 150 3
Breast Cancer 9 683 2

4 Experiments
In order to validate the clustering performance of the PSOFC algorithm, four
artificial data sets and two real world data sets from UCI machine learning
repository [11] were selected as test problems. The detailed information of these
six data sets is listed in Table 1.
The POSFC algorithm was coded in Visual C#, and all experiments were
run on a personal computer with Pentium IV(3.0 GHz) running Windows XP.
Based on the results of preliminary experiments,
√ the parameters of PSOFC were
set as follows: M inK = 2, M axK = n (n is the number of data points in a
test data set), the population size of particles S = 20, the stop criteria of fuzzy
c-means ε = 0.001, m = 1.5, α = 1.0 ∼ 0.35, c1 = c2 = 0.5, w = 0.72 ∼ 0.4,
Combining PSO and FCM for Dynamic Fuzzy Clustering Problems 7

the maximum number of iterations M N I = 30. Here α = 1.0 ∼ 0.35 denotes


that the parameter will be linearly decreased from 1.0 to 0.35 during a run. To
compare PSOFC with current algorithms, two dynamic clustering algorithms
were selected form the literature. The first one is GCUK [1] and the second
one is DCPSO [8]. The parameters of GCUK were set as follows: the number
of chromosomes is 50, the number of iterations is 100, √ crossover rate is 0.8,
mutation rate is 0.001, M inK is 2, and M axK is n . On the other hand,
the parameters of DCPSO were set as follows: Nc = 20, Pini = 0.75, s = 100,
w = 0.72, c1 = c2 = 1.49, Vmax = 255, M N I of binary PSO = 50 and the
number of outer iterations is 2. For each of the six test data sets, 20 independent
runs were performed for each of these algorithms.
The experimental results are summarized in Table 2. The results show that
the performance of PSOFC is better than that of two existing algorithms in terms
of the average values of objective function. Regarding the number of clusters
found by these algorithms, it is obvious that PSOFC is able to provide the
best number of clusters compared with GCUK and DCPSO. For example, the
real-world data set Iris has two overlapped data clusters. PSOFC can correctly
identify three clusters in this test problem while GCUK and DCPSO cannot.

Table 2. Experimental results

Dataset Algorithm Objective Obtained Actual CPU Time


Function Cluster cluster
Value number number
Avg. Stdev Avg. Stdev
Data 4 2 GCUK 11.7365 3.1135 2,3 4 1.3761 0.1664
DCPSO 13.2984 1.2046 2 2.5102 0.1283
PSOFC 18.4572 0.0732 4 1.1477 0.0139
Data 5 2 GCUK 21.6571 3.5126 3,5 5 4.7211 0.4276
DCPSO 26.588 0.0571 5 5.0953 0.3122
PSOFC 26.8756 0.0658 5 3.7773 0.0328
Data 6 2 GCUK 372.341 4.3122 3,4,5 6 5.4122 0.3017
DCPSO 408.7406 2.0281 5 5.932 0.2043
PSOFC 557.411 0.0483 6 3.6828 0.0418
Data 4 3 GCUK 651.7921 3.7683 2,3,4 4 5.2189 0.4261
DCPSO 731.9498 0.3181 4 5.9922 0.2007
PSOFC 732.0347 0.0374 4 3.7336 0.1449
Iris GCUK 20.8765 1.3712 2 3 3.9118 0.2132
DCPSO 21.3497 1.2215 2 4.2117 0.1943
PSOFC 27.1652 0.0451 3 3.5664 0.0587
Breast GCUK 169.6934 0.8976 2 2 15.5612 0.5164
Cancer DCPSO 169.2878 0.9735 2 17.7039 0.4952
PSOFC 170.3247 0.0327 2 10.4805 0.5321
8 Y. Kao et al.

5 Conclusion
This paper proposed a new fuzzy clustering algorithm combining PSO and FCM
to deal with dynamic clustering problems. By sharing the best results among
particles, the optimal number of clusters and cluster centers are easily found.
From the experimental results, it can be seen that PSOFC can find the best
cluster number even though the number of clusters is not given in advance. The
results also demonstrate that PSOFC has the ability to provide equal or better
solutions for the test problems. For the future work, it is worth to apply other
validity measure indices to the same clustering problems to see if the clustering
results are sensitive to different validity measure indices.

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Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible
Flowshop Problem with Sequence-Dependent
Setup Times

Aymen Sioud(B) , Caroline Gagné, and Marc Gravel

Département d’informatique et de mathématique,


Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 555 Boulevard Université,
Chicoutimi, Québec G7H 2B1, Canada
{asioud,c3gagne,mgravel}@uqac.ca

Abstract. In this paper, we propose three new metaheuristic imple-


mentations to address the problem of minimizing the makespan in a
hybrid flexible flowshop with sequence-dependent setup times. The first
metaheuristic is a genetic algorithm (GA) embedding two new crossover
operators, and the second is an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm
which incorporates a transition rule featuring lookahead information and
past information based on archive concepts such as the multiobjective
evolutionary computation. The third metaheuristic is a hybridization
(HGA) of the GA and the ACO algorithms. Numerical experiments were
performed to compare the performance of the proposed algorithms on
different benchmarks from the literature. The algorithms are compared
with the best algorithms from the literature. The results indicate that our
algorithms generate better solutions than those of the known reference
sets.

Keywords: ACO · Genetic Algorithm · Hybrid Metaheuristics · Schedul-


ing · Hybrid flowshop · Makespan · Sequence-dependent setup times

1 Introduction
Among production scheduling systems, the flowshop is one of the most well-
studied environments. In this configuration, all jobs follow the same routing
scheme. The associated problem can be considered as a basic model for several
variants of real problems. Moreover, real production systems rarely employ a
single machine at each stage. Therefore, the regular flowshop problem is often
extended to a set of usually identical parallel machines at each stage. That is,
instead of having a series of machines, we have a series of stages. The goal here is
to increase the capacity and the outflow of the production system and to reduce
the impact of bottleneck stages on overall shop efficiency. It is also frequent in
practice to have optional treatments for products, like polishing or additional
decorations in ceramic manufacturing as examples [2,21]. In this latter case some
jobs will skip some stages. We obtain thereby the hybrid flexible flowshop.

c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
P. Siarry et al. (Eds.): ICSIBO 2014, LNCS 8472, pp. 9–25, 2014.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-12970-9 2
10 A. Sioud et al.

Furthermore, in many industries such as pharmaceutics, metallurgy, ceramics


and automotive manufacturing, we often have setup times on equipment between
two different jobs. Many authors assume that setup times are negligible, or a
part of the job processing time. But explicit setup times must be included in
scheduling decisions in order to model a more realistic variant of hybrid flowshop
scheduling problems. These setup times may or may not be sequence-dependent.
[6] reported that 70% of industrial activities include dependent setup times. More
recently, [3] pointed out in 250 industrial projects that 50% of these projects
contain setup dependent times and when these setup times are applied, 92% of
the order deadline could be met. Production of good schedules often relies on
good management of these setup times [1,29].
The present paper considers the hybrid flexible flowshop problem with
sequence-dependent setup times (SDST/HFFS) minimizing the makespan. In
accordance with the notation for hybrid flowshops introduced by [26] who
extended the well-known three fields notation α/β/γ of [8], this problem is noted
m
as ((P M )(i) )i=1 /Fj , sijk /Cmax . [9] showed that the flowshop with multiple pro-
cessors (FSMP) problem with only two stages (m = 2), which can be considered
as a special case of the SDST/HFFS problem, is NP-hard, and therefore the
SDST/HFFS problem studied in this paper is also NP-hard.
m
The ((P M )(i) )i=1 /Fj , sijk /Cmax problem may be defined as a set of N jobs,
N={1,..., n}, available for processing at time zero on a set of M stages, M={1,...,
m}. At every stage i, i ∈ M, we have a set of Mi , Mi ={1,..., mi }, identical
parallel machines. Every machine at each stage can process all the jobs. Each
job has to be processed in exactly one of the Mi identical parallel machines at
stage i. However, some jobs will skip some stages. Fj denotes the set of stages
that the job j, j ∈ N has to visit. Furthermore, only stage skipping is allowed,
so it is not possible for a given job to visit stages {1, 2, 3} and another one
to visit stages {3, 2, 1}. pij denotes the processing time of job j at stage i.
Finally, sijk denotes the setup time between jobs j and k, k ∈ N at stage i. The
optimization criterion is the minimization of the maximum completion time or
makespan, which is calculated as Cmax = maxj∈N {Cj }.
Considering the completion time criterion for a regular flowshop problem,
a simple permutation of the jobs in an array constitutes the most widely used
encoding for the sequences. Nevertheless, when we handle a hybrid flowshop
scheduling problem with this kind of representation, two main decisions have
to be taken : (i) determine the job sequence at the beginning of each stage,
and (ii) assign jobs to machines at each stage. For the HFFS problem, the job
sequence at the first stage is normally determined by the outcome of the schedul-
ing algorithms. For subsequent stages, the jobs are sorted in increasing value of
their completion times in the previous stage. Furthermore, in the case of HFFS
without setup times, assigning jobs at each stage to the first available machine
(FAM), which results in the earliest completion time for the jobs in that stage,
represents a possibility as the assigning decision. However, in the case of the
SDST/HFFS we use the earliest completion time (ECT) rule which incorporates
the incurred setup times between two jobs when calculating the job completion
Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem 11

times. These completion times are calculated as Cij = max{Ci,j−1 , Ci−1,j }+


Si,j−1,j + pij , where Ci,j−1 is the completion time of the previous job in the
sequence that was assigned to the same machine as job j at stage i. Similarly,
Ci−1,j is the completion time of job j at the previous stage that this job visited.
[17] enhance the ECT rule with the fast earliest completion time rule (FECT).
This technique arranges the jobs in the same relative order when they have the
same ready times at each stage. The authors show that this technique be very
effective in the presence of stage skipping. We will use the FECT rule in the rest
of the paper.
In this work, to solve the SDST/HFFS problem, we introduce new crossover
operators in a genetic algorithm (GA), a new transition rule in an ant colony
optimization algorithm (ACO) and a new hybrid metaheuristic involving the
GA and the ACO. These represent the main contribution of this paper. The
innovative GA and ACO are designed and developed to adapt to the treated
problem. Both are then combined to create a new hybrid metaheuristic GA/ACO
with features not seen in the traditional GA and ACO. All the proposed approach
are essentially based on adapting their different mechanisms to the specifics of
the problem studied.
The body of this paper is organized into five sections. Section 2 provides
a brief literature review of the SDST/HFFS problem. Section 3 describes the
proposed GA, while Section 4 and Section 5 describe the ACO algorithm and
the hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA), respectively. The computational testing
and discussion are presented in Section 6. Finally, we conclude with some remarks
and future research directions.

2 Literature Review of SDST/HFFS

There is not much published research on the SDST/HFFS problem. To our


knowledge, there are only papers proposing heuristics and/or metaheuristics for
this problem. [13] introduced dispatching rules based on greedy methods, inser-
tion heuristic and an adaption of Johnson’s rule. Later, they [14] formulated
an integer programming (IP) model and developed random keys genetic algo-
rithm (RKGA). The results showed that the IP model does not easily solve the
SDST/HFFS problem and that the RKGA outperforms the dispatching rules
of [13] and other heuristics. All the algorithms are tested on generated problem
data. [28] proposed an immune algorithm (IA) which outperform the RKGA
of [14]. The authors used a real representation for individuals and the order
crossover (OX) as the crossover operator. [16] proposed a simulated annealing
(SA) using pair-wise and inverse interchange as moving operators. They also
used the Shortest Processing Time Cyclic Heuristic of [14], showing that the
SA outperforms the RKGA of [14] and the IA of [28]. [17] proposed a dynamic
dispatching rule heuristic and an iterated local search (ILS). They also proposed
960 test instances and compared their approaches to the dispatching rules of [13],
the RKGA of [14], the IA of [28] and the GA of [21] which is used for a different
problem. The results showed that their ILS with different encoding scheme gives
12 A. Sioud et al.

better results than all the other algorithms. [7] proposed an agent-based genetic
algorithm using the Similar Block 2-Point Order Crossover (S2BOX) of [21] and
introducing the agent-solution scheme to solve the SDST/HFFS problem.
There are studies about related problems with a more complex setting and/or
variations of the SDST/HFFS problem. [21] discussed also the SDST/HFFS
problem but they assumed that some machines are not eligible to perform some
jobs. They proposed a genetic algorithm using new and classic crossover opera-
tors from the literature. [22] proposed two iterated greedy heuristic (IGH) for the
SDST/HFFS problem with the objectives of minimizing the makespan and the
weighted tardiness. In this paper the authors consider release dates for machines,
machine eligibility, possibility of the setup times to be both anticipatory and non-
anticipatory, precedence constraints and time lags. [11] proposed three heuristics,
based on Shortest Processing Time (SPT), Longest Processing Time (LPT) and
the Johnson rule, and two metaheuristics based on a genetic algorithm and simu-
lated annealing, to solve the SDST/HFFS problem with machine availability con-
straints. [12] proposed an immune algorithm (IA) for solving the SDST/HFFS
problem with time lags on the machines comparing it with the IP model on small
instances. [18] studied a hybrid flowshop with setup times where no flexibility is
considered. They proposed a variation of simulated annealing using the Taguchi
method and minimizing the makespan and the maximum tardiness.

3 A Genetic Algorithm for the SDST/HFFS


Genetic algorithms are methods based upon biological mechanisms such as the
genetic inheritance laws of Mendel and the natural selection concept of Darwin,
where the best adapted species survive. The basic concepts of GAs have been
described by [10]. He explains how to add intelligence to a program by using
the crossover exchange of genetic material and transfer which is a source of
genetic diversity. Indeed, this kind of metaheuristic works with a set of individu-
als called the population. Every chromosome is evaluated and assigned a fitness
value. This evolving process exchanges genetic material and uses crossover and
mutation operators to transfer it, generating new individuals called offspring.
Selection and replacement processes are applied to reach better individuals over
the generations,converging to an optimum in the solution search space. The
effectiveness of a GA depends on the choice of its operators and parameters, but
also on the specific adaptation to the problem treated. In the following sections,
we explain the different choices of the GA’s parameters and we describe the
proposed crossover operators.

3.1 Population Encoding and Initialization

A genetic algorithm works on individuals with chromosomes, which are a repre-


sentation or codification of the solutions to the problem. In this case, we have
chosen an ordinal genetic representation. As shown in Figure 1, the individu-
als P1, P2, O1 and O2 are identified by sequences so that each element of the
Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem 13

sequence is associated with a numeric identifier that represents a particular job.


The population size is set to 40. The initial population is randomly generated
except for one individual, which is generated using the NEH Hybrid (NEHH)
rule [21], an adaptation of the well known NEH heuristic [19].

3.2 Crossover Operator


The crossover operator generates offspring in general, by coalescing two parents
with the objective of generating a better sequence, in this case a better makespan
Cmax . Many crossover operators from the literature are used for the permuta-
tion flowshop, such as the Partially Mapped Crossover (PMX), OX, Order Based
Crossover (OBX) or Uniform Order Based Crossover (UOBX) [15]. But for reg-
ular flowshops and especially the hybrid flowshops these crossover operators
give the worst results because they break the building blocks [21]. Introducing
dependent setup times and job skipping will complicate the situation even more.
The crossover operators that we present aim to ensure a better conservation of
the relative order and the absolute order when we deal with dependent setup
times. In this work we present three new crossover operators adapted for the
SDST/HFFS problem.

C1 C2

P1 3 1 4 2 8 5 6 7 9

P2 8 5 7 3 1 6 9 2 4

pi

O1 7 3 1 4
3 2
4 2
8 5
8
3
1 6 9

O2 3 1
3 4
8 5
2 2
8 4 6 7 9

Fig. 1. Illustration of RMPX and ARMPX

The RMPX Crossover. The first crossover operator is the Random Maximal
Preservative Crossover (RMPX) crossover introduced by [23], which shows good
behavior when dealing with the dependent setup times but for a single machine.
RMPX is defined as follows : (i) two parents P1 and P2 are considered and two
14 A. Sioud et al.

distinct crossover points C1 and C2 are selected randomly, as shown in Figure 1;


(ii) an insertion point pi is then randomly chosen in the offspring O1, pi being a
random number in the interval [1, n - ( C2 - C1 )]; (iii) the part [C1, C2 ] of P1,
shaded in Figure 1, is inserted in the offspring O1 from pi , from the position 4
as shown in Figure 1; and (iv) the rest of the offspring O1 is completed from
P2 in the order of appearance from its first position. To generate the second
offspring, we just reverse the roles of the two parents P1 and P2 and repeat the
same process.

The ARMPX Crossover. The second crossover operator is the Antago-


nist Random Maximal Preservative Crossover (ARMPX), an adaptation of the
RMPX crossover where in steps (ii) and (iii) we insert the parents’ first and last
parts instead of the part [C1, C2 ] in the offspring (shaded in O2 in Figure 1).
After that, the rest of the offspring is completed from the other parent in the
order of appearance from its first position. As shown in Figure 1, from parents
P1 and P2 we obtain the offspring O2 when applying the ARMPX crossover.
The aim here is to preserve the two building blocks in the front and the back of
the parent, and to preserve the relative order in the insertion section.

The LJMPX Crossover. The third crossover operator is the List Jobs Maxi-
mal Preservative Crossover (LJMPX) which works like the RMPX crossover for
the first 3 steps. This crossover represent the first contribution in this paper.
After inserting the cross section, two lists are built from the second parent P2
which contains the unscheduled jobs. The LL list contains the jobs which will be
inserted to the left of this section while the RL list contains the jobs which will
be inserted to the right. An approximate value of the makespan C max is then
calculated with a sequence containing the subsequence [C1, C2 ] in the offspring
and where the rest of the jobs have a normalized value pij , using a normalized
setup time sijk which represents the average processing time and setup time for
the unscheduled jobs, respectively. Next, we insert the jobs from the correspond-
ing lists one by one, minimizing the C max until we obtain a complete sequence.
As shown in Figure 2, the offspring O3 is a potential offspring from parents P1
and P2 where the lists LL and RL are built from the parent P2 after inserting
the part [C1, C2 ] from position pi .

The MPOBX Crossover. The last crossover operator introduced in this paper
is the Maximum Preservative Order Block Crossover (MPOBX) which works as
follows. First, from the two parents, we insert the longest job blocks at the same
positions, using four crossover points. After that, as in the LJMPX crossover, we
calculate an approximate value C max using the pij and sijk for the unscheduled
job positions. Then we insert the remaining unscheduled jobs as in the LJMPX
crossover, from a single job list. As shown in Figure 3, we insert the block {3, 1,
4} from P1 and block {9, 7, 2} from P2. The unscheduled job list contains jobs
5, 6 and 8. These jobs will be inserted one by one using the C max value.
Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem 15

C1 C2

P1 3 1 4 2 8 5 6 7 9

P2 8 5 7 3 1 6 9 2 4

LL={7, 3, 1} pi RL={6, 9}

O3 3 1 7 4
3 2
4 2
8 5
8
3
1 6 9

Fig. 2. Illustration of LJMPX

P1 3 1 4 2 8 5 6 7 9

P2 8 5 1 3 9 7 2 6 4

Job list = {5, 6, 8}

O4 3 1 4 3 9
4 2
7 2
8
3
1

Fig. 3. Illustration of MPOBX

Finally, we set the probability pc of crossover to 0.8. So, at each genera-


tion, N * 0.8 offspring will be generated. This crossover represents the second
contribution in this paper.

3.3 Mutation Operator, Selection and Replacement Schemes


Mutation consists of exchanging the position of two distinct jobs randomly cho-
sen. The probability pm of a mutation occurring is set to 0.01. The chromosome
selection for the crossover is done using a stochastic binary tournament. The
replacement is elitist and uses the (λ + μ) scheme.

4 Ant Colony Optimization for the SDST/HFFS


The ant colony optimization (ACO) is a population based metaheuristic designed
to solve combinatorial optimization problems, introduced by [4] and inspired
16 A. Sioud et al.

by studies of the behavior of ants. In the natural world, ants are able to find
the shortest path between their nest and food sources, by following a chemical
pheromone trail on the ground after they walk on it. That is, they choose the way
with more probable paths, which are marked by stronger pheromone concentra-
tions. Indeed, as more ants use the same path, more pheromones are deposited
and more ants tend to follow this path. This collective foraging behavior, depos-
ing and following pheromones in the natural world, became the inspiring source
of the ACO. [5] proposed notable improvements to the original ACO version.
The improvements include a modified transition rule called the pseudo-random-
proportional rule, global and local trail updating rules, use of restricted candi-
dates list and the use of local improvement rules. In this section we describe in
detail the ACO algorithm to solve the SDST/HFFS problem with the objectives
of minimizing the makespan. In the main loop, after the pheromone initializa-
tion, has five steps where a ants construct a sequence of N jobs : (i) an initial
job is set ; (ii) each ant builds a job sequence using the pseudo random propor-
tional transition rule in Equations (1) and (2) ; (iii) a local pheromone update
is performed ; (iv) a local improvement heuristic is applied ; and (v) a global
pheromone update is applied. This main loop is executed until a stopping cri-
terion is reached. The loop is executed for tmax cycles, as shown in Figure 4,
representing a generic pseudo code embedding the new transition rule shown
in Equations (1) and (2). The new transition rule has been adapted to the
SDST/HFFS problem. This represents the third contribution in this paper.

4.1 Algorithm Initialization

At each iteration, given that a job i is the previous job added to the sequence,
an ant chooses the next job to append by considering, among other factors, the
pheromone trail intensity τij (t) which is initialized to a small positive quantity
τ0 for all pair of jobs (i,j), i.e., τij (0) = τ0 . Afterward, the pheromone trail will
contain information based on the solution quality and the number of time that
ants chose to visit job j after job i.

4.2 Setting Up the Initial Job

Each job has an initial setup time at each stage i on a machine mi and this setup
is taken into account when calculating the makespan. Therefore, to maintain
diversity and for each job sequence constructed by the a ants, the first job is
chosen pseudo-randomly. This choice is based on the earliest completion time on
the first stage.

4.3 Building a Sequence

From an existing partial job sequence, each ant builds a sequence using the
pseudo random proportional transition rule in Equations (1) and (2). In Equation
(1), q is a random number and q0 is a parameter; both are between 0 and 1.
Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem 17

/* STEP 0 : Pheromone Initialization */


for all job pair (i,j) do
τi j (0) = τ0
end for
/* Main Loop */
for t = 1 → tmax do
/* STEP 1 : Set initial job */
for k = 1 → m do
Set the initial job for the ant k
end for
/* STEP 2 : Build a sequence */
for i = 2 → n do
for k = 1 → m do
Choose the next job to insert using the Equations 1 and 2
/* STEP 3 : Local pheromone update */
for all chosen job pair (i,j) do
τi j (t) = pt ∗ τi j (t) + (1 − pt ) ∗ Δτi j (t) where Δτi j = τ0
end for
end for
end for
/* STEP 4 : Local improvement */
for k = 1 → m do
Apply local improvement method or-opt heuristic
end for
/* STEP 5 : Global pheromone update */
for all adjacent job pair (i,j) ∈ the best sequence Q∗ do
τi j (t) = pt ∗ τi j (t) + (1 − pt ) ∗ Δτi j (t) where Δτi j = 1/L∗
end for
end for

Fig. 4. The ACO pseudo-code

The parameter q0 determines the relative importance of the existing information


exploitation and the new solution search space exploration. Indeed, Equation
(1) states that the next job will be chosen by a greedy rule when q ≤ q0 or
by the probabilistic rule of Equation (2) when q > q0 . Equation (2) describes
m
the biased exploration rule pij also adapted to the ((P M )(i) )i=1 /Fj , sijk /Cmax
problem when inserting job j after job i.
In these equations, the elements τij (t) and ηij represent the pheromone
trail and the visibility, respectively. Concerning the visibility, ηij represents the
inverse of the largest completion time among all the jobs in the list of the uns-
elected jobs. Obviously, the completion time includes the setup times between
the last scheduled job and the next one. The element SU CCij (At ) represents
the past information, which is introduced by a matrix built from an archive that
stores the best solutions throughout the evolution process, as in some cases in
multi-objective evolutionary algorithms using the Pareto-optimal concept. This
concept was first introduced in transition rules by [23]; it plays the role of a long-
term memory. Here, we adapt them for our problem. From the archive we build
a matrix which computes the number of times that a job j follows a job i in the
18 A. Sioud et al.

⎧  α  β   δ  φ

⎪ 1
⎨ arg max τij (t) × SU CCij (At ) × ηij × if q ≤ q0
j= Hij

⎪ J if q > q0

(1)
where J is chosen according to the probability pij

 α  β   δ  φ
1
τij (t) × SU CCij (At ) × ηij ×
Hij
pij (t) =  α   β  δ  φ (2)
1
τij (t) × SU CCij (At ) × ηij ×
Hij

archive solutions. Finally, the element Hij represents the lookahead information
which use an heuristic that anticipates the choices in the transition rule. This
heuristic is based on an upper bound of the makespan, using the average values
of processing time pij and the normalized setup times sijk for the unscheduled
jobs.

4.4 Local Trail Updating

Once the ants generate a solution, for each pair of jobs (i,j) the pheromone level
on the path is updated using a local update rule as in Equation (3)

τij (t) = p × τij (t) + (1 − p) × Δτij (t) (3)


where Δτij = τ0 and 0 ≤ p ≤ 1 is a constant parameter.

4.5 Local Improvement

After computing the makespan of the generated sequence by the ant, we apply a
local improvement under probability pLI . For that, we use a simple local search
generating a neighborhood using a swap move.

4.6 Global Trail Updating

The pheromone trail is updated at the end of the cycle, but only for the job
pairs (i,j) in the best solution with makespan C ∗ found in the cycle. The global
update rule is executed using Equation (4)

τij (t) = pt × τij (t) + (1 − pt ) × Δτij (t) (4)


where Δτij = 1/C ∗ and 0 ≤ pt ≤ 1 is a constant parameter.
Metaheuristics for Solving a Hybrid Flexible Flowshop Problem 19

4.7 Parameter Initialization


The trail pheromone is initialized to the value τ0 =(N ∗ Lr )−1 where N is the job
number and Lr is the makespan value of a randomly generated sequence. The
other parameters have been assigned the following values : p = pt = 0.9, the ant
number a = 10 and q0 = 0.9. The parameters α, β, φ and δ associated with
the four matrices in the transition rule were set to identical values for all the
problems. These parameters were adjusted following empirical tests on different
instances. The four parameters α, β, φ and δ have been assigned the values
4, 2, 3 and 3, respectively. Finally, the archive size and the local improvement
probability pLI have been assigned the values 20 and 0.2, respectively.

5 Hybrid Metaheuristic GA/ACO for the SDST/HFFS


We introduce here a collaborative hybridization [20] at the LJMPX crossover
introduced in Section 3.2. Indeed, we use the ACO algorithm introduced in
Section 4 to fill either the right part or the left part or both. Inserting the jobs
on the right of the cross section is similar to the operating of a classical ant.
From the last inserted job i in the cross section, a job j is chosen according to
the pseudo-random-proportional transition rule expressed in Equations (1) and
(2) using the jobs in the right list.
Since the cross section is already set, inserting the remaining jobs on the left
of this section can be done either from the first offspring position from left to right
as a classical ant or inversely from the first cross section position. During the
application of the crossover, we use equiprobably one of the two methods of left
insertion. Finally, in the case of inserting jobs from right to left, we make some
adaptations in Equations (1) and (2). The hybridization represents the fourth
contribution in this paper when using new features in both GA and ACO.

6 Computational Results and Discussion


The benchmark problem set is available from http://soa.iti.es and consists of
960 problem tests. The instances are combinations of N and M, where N =
{20, 50, 80, 150} and M = {2, 4, 8}. The processing times are generated from
a uniform [1, 99] distribution. The setup times are generated according to four
distributions [1, 25], [1, 50], [1, 99] and [1, 125]. This corresponds to a ratio
between setup and processing times of 25%, 50%, 100% and 125%, respectively.
There is a group with two parallel machines per stage and groups where the
number of parallel machines at each stage is sampled from a uniform distribution
in the range [1, 4]. The probability of skipping a stage for each job is set at 0.10
and 0.40. All the experiments were run on an Intel Core 2.8 GHz processors
and 4 GB of main memory. To evaluate the performance of the other proposed
algorithm, we will conduct statistical analysis and comparisons with the results
of [17], where, the authors compare an iterated local search (ILS) to several
metaheuristics and heuristics as the RKGA of [14], the IA of [28], the genetic
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monks in our own monastery, four for the brethren at Fulda, and five
for those in other places), three books of the Gospels, and two with
the Epistles and Gospels, which are called Lectionaries; besides
which, I wrote four service-books for matins. I wrote in addition a
good many books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at
Hirschfeld and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for certain
friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the
monastery of Tegernsee, for the monastery of Pryel, for the
monastery of Obermünster and for that of Niedermünster, and for my
sister’s son. Moreover, to many others I gave or sent, at different
times, sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings.... Afterwards, old
age’s infirmity of various kinds hindered me.”[120]
If there were many hundred scribes of the diligence of Othlonus,
the mass of literature produced in the scriptorium may very easily
have rivalled the later output of the printing-presses. The labours of
Othlonus were, if the records are to be trusted, eclipsed by those of
the nun Diemude or Diemudis of the monastery of Wessobrunn. An
anonymous monk of this monastery, writing in the year 1513, says:
“Diemudis was formerly a most devout nun of this our monastery
of Wessobrunn. [Pez states that Diemudis lived in the time of
Gregory VII., who became Pope in 1073. She was, therefore, though
probably somewhat younger, a contemporary of the monk Othlonus
of Ratisbon.] For our monastery was formerly double or divided into
two parts; that is to say, of monks and nuns. The place of the monks
was where it now is; but that of the nuns, where the parish church
now stands. This virgin was most skilful in the art of writing: for
though she is not known to have composed any work, yet she wrote
with her own hand many volumes in a most beautiful and legible
character, both for divine service and for the public library of the
monastery. Of these books she has left a list in a certain
plenarius.[121] The titles are as follows:
A Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences. Another Missal, with
the Gradual and Sequences, given to the Bishop of Trèves. Another
Missal, with the Epistles, Gospels, Graduals, and Sequences.
Another Missal, with the Epistles and Gospels for the year, the
Gradual and Sequences, and the entire service for baptism. A
Missal, with Epistles and Gospels. A Book of Offices. Another Book
of Offices, with the baptismal service (given to the Bishop of
Augsburg). A Book, with the Gospels and Lessons. A Book, with the
Gospels. A Book, with the Epistles. A Bible, in two volumes, given for
the estate in Pisinberch. A Bible, in three volumes. S. Gregory ad
regaredum. S. Gregory on Ezekiel. Sermons and Homilies of certain
ancient Doctors, three volumes. Origen on the Old Testament.
Origen on the Canticles. Augustine on the Psalms, three volumes.
Augustine on the Gospels and on the First Epistle of S. John, two
volumes. Augustine, Epistles, to the number of lxxv. Augustine,
Treatises. S. Jerome’s Epistles, to the number of clxiv. The Tripartite
History of Cassiodorus. The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. S.
Augustine, Fifty Sermons. The Life of S. Silvester. Jerome against
Vigilantius. Jerome, De Consolatione Mortuorum. The Life of S.
Blasius. The Life of John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria early
in the seventh century. Paschasius on the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Conflict of Lanfranc with Berengarius. The Martyrdom of S.
Dionysius. The Life of S. Adrian. S. Jerome, De Hebraicis
Quæstionibus. S. Augustine, Confessions. Canons. Glossa per A. B.
C. Composita (i. e., a Gloss alphabetically arranged).
These are the volumes written with her own hand by the aforesaid
handmaid of God, Diemudis, to the praise of God and of the holy
Apostles Peter and Paul, the patrons of the monastery.”[122]
The same writer says that Diemudis (whom he calls exaratrix
diligentissima) carried on a correspondence by very sweet letters
(epistolæ suaves valde) with Herluca, who was for thirty-six years a
nun at Eppach, and that the letters were in his time (1513), that is
four and a half centuries later, extant in the monastery of Bernried.

The Influence of the Scriptorium.—Hildebrand, who,


under the name Gregory VII., became Pope in 1073, appears to
have made large use of the literary facilities of the monasteries to
bring effectively before the public the doctrinal teachings which
seemed to him essential for the wholesome development of the
strength of the Church in its great contest with the imperial power
and for the proper rule of the world. The histories of the time speak
of monks travelling throughout the Empire circulating writings in
favour of the Church, by means of which writings schism could be
withstood and the zeal of good Catholics aroused.[123]
Certain of the monasteries, in connection with their literary activity
in behalf of the Pope, came into special disfavour with the Emperor.
Among them was Hirschau, the importance of whose literary work
has been previously referred to. This monastery fell under the
displeasure of the Emperor Frederick IV., but the monks, says their
own annalist, sustained by their prayers, braved the sword of the
tyrant and despised the menaces of offended princes.[124] Abbot
William of Hirschau had for twenty-two years been the soul of
monastic regeneration in Germany. He was one of the great scholars
of his time and had done not a little to further the literary pre-
eminence of his monastery, and he became one of the most valiant
defenders of the popes during this contest. Among other
ecclesiastical writers whose pens were active in the defence of the
papal decrees and in assailing the utterances of the schismatics, and
whose work, by means of the distributing machinery which had
already been organised between the monasteries, secured for the
time a large circulation, were Bernard, at one time master of the
schools of Constance, but later a monk at Hirschau; Bernold, a monk
of St. Blaise; Adelbert, a monk of Constance; and Gebhard, another
monk of Hirschau.[125]
Gregory was possibly the first pope who made effective and
extended use of the writings of devout authors for the purpose of
influencing public opinion. If we may judge by the results of his long
series of contests with the imperial power in Germany, the selection
of these literary weapons was one proof of his sagacity. In this
contest, the scriptoria of the monasteries proved more powerful than
the armies of the emperors; as, five hundred years later, the printing-
presses of the Protestants proved more effective than the Bulls of
the Papacy.
The most important, in connection with its influence and
consequences, of the discoveries made by scholars concerning the
fraudulent character of historic documents, occurred as late as the
beginning of the fifteenth century. It was about 1440 when Laurentius
Valla, at that time acting as secretary for King Alphonso of Naples,
wrote his report upon the famous Donation of Constantine, the
document upon which the Roman Church had for nearly a thousand
years based its claims to be the direct representative in Western
Europe of the old imperial authority. Valla brought down upon his
head much ecclesiastical denunciation. The evidences produced by
him of the fact that the document had been fabricated a century or
more after the death of Constantine could not be gotten rid of, and,
although for a number of years the Church continued to maintain the
sacred character of the Donation, and has, in fact, never formally
admitted that it was fraudulent, it was impossible, after the beginning
of the sixteenth century, even for the ecclesiastics themselves to
base any further claims for the authority of the Church upon this
discredited parchment.
Of almost equal importance was the discovery of the fabrication of
the pseudo Isidoric Decretals. The Decretals had been concocted
early in the ninth century by certain priests in the West Frankish
Church, and had been eagerly accepted by Pope Nicholas I., who
retained in the archives of the Vatican the so-called originals. The
conclusion that the Decretals had been fraudulently imposed upon
the Church was not finally accepted until the beginning of the
fourteenth century. It was with the humanistic movement of the
Renaissance that historical criticism had its birth, and a very
important portion of the work of such criticism consisted in the
analysis of the lack of foundation of a large number of fabulous
legends upon which many of the claims of the Church had been
based.
There were evidently waves of literary interest and activity in the
different monasteries, between which waves the art of writing fell
more or less into disuse and the libraries were neglected. In the
monastery at Murbach, for instance, in which, in the beginning of the
century, important work had been done, it is recorded that in 1291 no
monks were found who were able to write, and the same was said in
1297 of the more famous monastery of St. Gall.[126] On the other
hand, the newly organised Orders of travelling or mendicant monks
took an active interest in preparing and in distributing manuscript
copies of works of doctrine at about the time when, in the older and
richer Orders, literary earnestness was succumbing to laziness and
luxury. With these mendicant monks, began also to come into
circulation a larger proportion of original writings, transcribed and
corrected, and probably to some extent sold by the authors
themselves. Richard de Bury makes bitter references in his
Philobiblon (chapters v. and vi.) to the general antagonism of the
Church towards literature, but speaks with appreciation of the
educational services rendered by the mendicant monks. Writing was
done also by the monks of the Minorite Order, but their rules and
their methods of life called for such close economy that the
manuscripts left by them are distinguished by the meagreness and
inadequacy of the material and the closely crowded script, which, in
order further to save space, contains many abbreviations.
Roger Bacon is said to have come into perplexity because, when
he wished to send his treatises to Pope Clement IV., he could find no
one among the Brothers of his Order who was able to assist him in
transcribing the same, while scribes outside of the Order to whom he
attempted to entrust the work gave him untrustworthy and slovenly
copies.[127]
With the beginning of the fourteenth century, it is possible to note a
scholarly influence exercised upon certain of the monasteries by the
universities. The most enterprising of the monks made opportunities
for themselves to pass some years of their novitiate in one or more
of the universities, or later secured leave of absence from the
monasteries for the purpose of visiting the universities. It also
happened that from the monasteries where literary work had already
been successfully carried on, monks were occasionally called to the
universities in order to further the literary undertakings of the
theological faculties. Finally, the abbots, and other high officials of
the monasteries, were, after the beginning of the fourteenth century,
more frequently appointed from among the ecclesiastics who had
had a university training.
The library in Heidelberg, the university of which dates from 1386,
received from the monastery at Salem a large number of beautiful
manuscripts, and finally, an illuminated breviary was completed in
1494 by the Cistercian Amandus, who, after the destruction of his
monastery in Strasburg, had found refuge in Salem, where in 1529
he became abbot. There is evidence that, at this time, both in Salem
and in other monasteries in which the business of manifolding and of
selling or exchanging manuscripts became important, a large
proportion of the work of illustrating or illuminating was done by paid
artists.
After the reform movement which began with the Council of Basel,
there came into existence, in connection with the renewal of
theological discussions, a fresh literary activity in many of the
monasteries. In the monastery at Camp, in 1440, the library was
renewed and very much extended, and here were written by
Guillaume de Reno, scriptor egregius nulli illo tempore in arte sua
secundus, the Catholicon, books of the Mass, and other devotional
works. Abbot Heinrich von Calcar provided Guillaume for eighteen
years with a yearly supply of parchment, valued at seventeen florins,
and of other writing material.
In Michelsberg, Abbot Ulrich III. (1475-1483) and his successor
Andreas restored the long-time deserted library, and by work by the
scribes of the monastery and through the exchange of works for the
productions of other monasteries, secured an important collection of
manuscripts. In 1492, Andreas, abbot of the monastery of Bergen,
near Magdeburg, renewed the scriptorium, which, later, became
active in the production of copies of works connected with this earlier
reformation.
Adolph von Hoeck, who died in 1516, Prior of Scheda in
Westphalia, was a skilled scribe as well as a zealous reformer. In
Monsee, a certain Brother, Jacob of Breslau, who died in 1480, was
said to have written so many volumes that six horses could with
difficulty bear the burden of them.[128] In the monastery at
Tegernsee, already referred to, there was, under Abbot Conrad V.
(1461-1492), an active business in the manifolding and distribution of
writings. The same was the case in Blaubeuern, where, as early as
1475, a printing-press was put into operation, but the preparation of
manuscripts continued until the end of the century. Among the works
issued from Blaubeuern in manuscript form after the beginning of
printing, were the Chronicles of Monte Cassino, by Andreas Ysingrin,
completed in 1477, and the Life of the Holy Wilhelm of Hirschau, by
Brother Silvester, completed in 1492.[129]
This year of 1492 appears to have been one of exceptional
intellectual as well as physical activity. It records not merely the
completion of a number of important works marking the close of the
manuscript period of literary production, but the publication, as will
be noted in a later chapter, of a long series of the more important of
the earlier printed books in Mayence, Basel, Venice, Milan, and
Paris.
In Belgium, through the first half of the fifteenth century, while
many of the monasteries had fallen into a condition of luxurious
inactivity, work was still carried on in the Laurentium monastery of
Liége by Johann of Stavelot, and by other zealous scribes, and in
several other of the Benedictine monasteries of the Low Countries
the scriptoria were kept busied. Towards the end of the fifteenth
century, and for some years after the beginning of the work of the
German printers, the production of manuscripts in Germany
continued actively in the monastery of S. Peter at Erfurt, and in the
monasteries of S. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, the work of which has
been recorded with full precision and detail in the famous catalogue
of Wilhelm Wittwer.
In 1472, in this latter monastery, Abbot Melchior founded the first
printing-office at Augsburg in order to give to the monks continued
employment, and in order also to be able to enlarge the library by
producing copies of books for exchange. It was a long time,
however, before the work of the printing-press came to be sufficiently
understood to bring to a stop the labours of the scribes in
manifolding manuscripts for sale and for exchange. The writings of
the nun Helena of Hroswitha, the Chronicle of Urspergense, and
other works continued to be prepared in manuscript form after
printed editions were in the market. The same was the case with the
great choir books, which continued during nearly half the century to
be very largely prepared by hand in the scriptoria. This persistence
of the old methods was partly due to habit and to the difficulty of
communication with the centres in which the printing-presses were
already at work, but was very largely, of course, the result of the fact
that in the monasteries was always available a large amount of
labour, and that the use of this labour for the preparation of sacred
books had come to form part of the religious routine of the institution.
With the development of the system of common schools, the
educational work which had previously been carried on in the
convents was very largely given up, thus throwing upon the hands of
the monks a still greater proportion of leisure time. In 1492, Johann
of Trittenheim, Abbot of Sponheim, wrote to the Abbot Gerlach of
Deutz a letter, De Laude Scriptorum, in which he earnestly invokes
the scribes (he was addressing the scribes of the monasteries) by no
means to permit themselves to be deterred from their holy
occupation by the invasion of the printing-presses. Such admonitions
might continue the work of the monks in certain of the scriptoria, but
were, of course, futile in the attempt to preserve for any length of
time the business of circulating manuscript copies in competition with
the comparatively inexpensive, and often beautiful, productions of
the printers.
An important part in the work of the preparation and distribution of
manuscripts was taken by the so-called “Brothers of common life”
(clerici de vita communi), who later, also occupied themselves with
the new invention of printing. They cannot properly be classed with
the scribes of the monasteries, for they made their work a trade and
a means of revenue. This practice obtained, to be sure, also with
certain of the monasteries, but it must be considered as exceptional
with them. The Brothers differed also from the writers in the
university towns and elsewhere, who prepared manuscripts for
renting out to students and readers, partly because of the special
conditions of their Brotherhood, under which the earnings of
individual Brothers all went into a common treasury, but chiefly
because they made their work as scribes a means of religious and
moral instruction. The earnings secured from the sale of manuscripts
were also largely devoted to the missionary work of the Brotherhood.
The chief authority for the history of the Brotherhood is the work of
Delprat, published in Amsterdam in 1856.
The Brotherhood house in Deventer, Holland, founded by Gerhard
Groote in 1383, became an important workshop for the production
and distribution of manuscripts. Delprat states that the receipts from
these sales were for a time the main support of the Brotherhood
house. In 1389, a copy of the Bible which had been written out by
Brother Jan von Enkhuizen was sold for five hundred gulden in
gold.[130] In Liége, the Brothers were known as Broeders van de
Penne, because they carried quill pens in their caps. Groote seems
himself to have taken a general supervision of this business of the
production of books, selecting the books to be manifolded, verifying
the transcripts, and arranging for the sale of the copies which were
passed as approved. Florentius Radewijus had the general charge of
the manuscripts (filling the rôle which to-day would be known as that
of stock clerk) and of preparing the parchment for the scribes and
writing in the inscriptions of the finished manuscripts. Later, with the
development of the Order and the extension of its book business,
each Brotherhood house had its librarius, or manager of the
manufacturing and publishing department; its rubricator, who added
the initial letters or illuminated letters in the more expensive
manuscripts; its ligator, who had charge of the binding, etc.
It was a distinctive feature of the works prepared by the Brothers
that they were very largely written in the language of the land instead
of in Latin, which elsewhere was, as we have seen, the exclusive
language for literature. It was, in fact, one of the charges made by
the ecclesiastics against the Order that they put into common
language doctrinal instruction which ordinary readers, without direct
guidance of the Church, were not competent to understand, and
which tended, therefore, to work mischief. In 1398, the Brothers took
counsel on the point whether it were permissible to distribute among
the people religious writings in Low German, and they appear to
have secured the authorisation required. They laid great stress upon
the precision of their script, and they were, as a rule, opposed to
needless expenditure for ornamentation of text or of covers. Under
the influence of Groote, the work of preparing manuscripts of good
books was taken up by the monks and the nuns of Windesheim, but,
according to Busch, the books produced in Windesheim were but
rarely sold. In some cases these seem to have been distributed
gratis, while in others they were given in exchange for other books
required for the library of the monastery or convent.[131]
Wattenbach says that the Brothers in the Home at Hildesheim
were called upon for an exceptional amount of labour in preparing
books of the Mass and other devotional works in connection with the
reform movement in the monasteries of lower Saxony, which was
active in the middle of the fifteenth century. In the year 1450 (the
year in which Gutenberg perfected his printing-press) it is recorded
that the Hildesheim Brothers earned from the sale of their
manuscripts no less than a thousand gulden.[132] In connection with
their interest in the production and distribution of cheap literature, the
Brothers did not fail to make very prompt and intelligent utilisation of
the new invention of printing, and among the earlier printing-offices
established in Germany and in the Low Countries were those
organised by the Brothers at Deventer, Zwoll, Gouda, Bois-le-duc,
Brussels, Louvain, Marienthal, Rostock, etc.
The Literary Monks of England.—In accepting the
influence of literary ideals, the Anglo-Saxon monks were much
slower and less imaginative than the quicker and more idealistic
Celts. The quickening of the intellectual development of the
monasteries in England was finally brought about through the
influence of Celtic missionaries coming directly from Ireland or from
the Irish monasteries of the Scottish region, such as Iona and its
associates.
Before the literary work of the English monasteries began, there
was already in existence a considerable body of literature, which
was the expression of the pre-christian conceptions and ideals of the
Anglo-Saxons and their Scandinavian kinsmen. Certain of the most
famous of the literary creations of the Anglo-Saxons were probably
produced subsequent to the time of the acceptance by the people of
Christianity, but these productions continued to represent the
imagination and the methods of thought of the pagan ancestry, and
to utilise as their themes the old-time legends. These Saxon
compositions were almost exclusively in the form of poems, epics,
and ballads devoted to accounts of the achievements of heroes
(more or less legendary) in their wars with each other, and in their
adventures with the gods and with the powers of magic and evil. In
these early epics, devoted chiefly to strife, women bear but a small
part, and the element of love enters hardly at all.
While it is doubtless the case that the Saxon epics, like the Greek
poems of the Homeric period and the compositions of the Celtic
bards, were preserved for a number of generations in the memories
of the reciters, there are references indicating that the writing of the
texts on the parchment began at a comparatively early date after the
occupation of England. This would imply the existence of some
trained scribes before work was begun in the scriptoria of the Saxon
monasteries. Such lay scribes must, however, have been very few
indeed, and the task of handing down for posterity the old legendary
ballads must have depended chiefly upon the scops, which was the
name given to the poets or bards attached to the court of a prince or
chieftain. It is, however, not until the acceptance of Christianity by
the Saxons that there comes to be any abiding interest in letters. As
Jusserand puts it: “These same Anglo-Saxons, whose literature at
the time of their invasion consisted of the songs mentioned by
Tacitus, carmina antiqua, which they trusted to memory alone, who
compiled no books, and who for written monuments had Runic
inscriptions graven on utensils or on commemorative stones, now
have in their turn monks who compose chronicles and kings who
know Latin. Libraries are formed in the monasteries; schools are
attached to them; manuscripts are thus copied and illuminated in
beautiful caligraphy and in splendid colours. The volutes and knots
with which the worshippers of Woden ornamented their fibulæ, their
arms, the prows of their ships, are reproduced in purple and azure,
the initials of the Gospels. The use made of them is different, the
taste remains the same.”
It is undoubtedly the case that the preservation of such fragments
of Anglo-Saxon literature as have come down to us, and probably of
most of the Scandinavian compositions which were transmitted
through the Saxons, was due to the monastery scribes whose copies
were in part transcribed from the earlier parchments and in part were
taken down from the recitals made in the monasteries by the bards
or minstrels. The service was in fact similar to that previously
rendered by the Irish monks to Celtic literature, and by the scribes of
Gaul and Italy to the writings of classic times.
The identity or kinship of much of the heroic poetry of the Anglo-
Saxons with that of the Scandinavians is pointed out by Grein in his
Anglo-Saxon Library, and by Vigfusson and York-Powell in their
Corpus Poeticum Boreale. The greatest of the old English epics,
Beowulf, sometimes called “the Iliad of the Saxons,” was put into
written form some time in the eighth century and, like all similar
epics, was doubtless the result of the weaving together of a series of
ballads of varied dates and origins. The text of the poem has been
preserved almost complete in a manuscript, now placed in the
Cottonian collection in the British Museum, which dates from the
latter part of the tenth century.
It will be understood that, as a matter of convenience in a brief
reference of this kind, I am using the term Saxon and Anglo-Saxon in
no strict ethnological sense, but simply to designate the Teutonic
element of the people of England, an element whose influence is
usually considered to have begun with the landing of Hengist and
Horsa in 451.
The first of the Anglo-Saxon monks to be ranked as a poet
appears to have been the cowherd Cædmon, a vassal of the Abbess
Hilda and a monk of Whitby. Caædmon’s songs were sung about
670. He is reported to have put into verse the whole of Genesis and
Exodus, and, later, the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles, but
his work was not limited to the paraphrasing of the Scriptures. A
thousand years before the time of Paradise Lost, the Northumbrian
monk sang before the Abbess Hilda the Revolt of Satan. Fragments
of this poem, discovered by Archbishop Usher, and printed for the
first time in 1655, have been preserved, and have since that date
been frequently published.[133] Cædmon died in 680, and Milton in
1674. The Abbess Hilda, who was herself a princess of royal family,
appears to have had a large interest in furthering the study of
literature, not only in the nunnery founded by her, but in a
neighbouring monastery which came largely under her influence. In
both nunnery and monastery, schools for the children of the district
were instituted, which schools were probably the earliest of their
class in that portion of Britain.
The Northumbrian poet Cynewulf, whose work was done between
the years 760 and 800, may be referred to as a connecting link
between the group of national or popular bards and the literary
workers of the Church. His earlier years were passed as a
wandering minstrel, but later in life he passed through some religious
experience and entered a monastery, devoting himself thereafter to
religious poetry. His conversion was doubtless the means of
preserving (through the scriptorium of his monastery) such of his
compositions as have remained, and thus of making a place for his
name among the authors of England.
Among the earlier Saxon monks whose educational work was
important are to be included S. Wilfred (634-709) and S. Cuthbert
(637-687). Wilfred introduced into England the Rule of the
Benedictines, and exercised a most important influence in instituting
Benedictine monasteries and in bringing these monasteries into
relations with the Church of Rome. His life was a stormy one, but
notwithstanding the various contentions with the several monarchs
who at that time divided between them the territory of England, and
in spite of several periods of banishment, he found time to carry on a
great work in furthering the intellectual life of his Benedictine monks.
It was largely due to him that the Benedictine monasteries accepted
almost from the first the responsibility of conducting the schools of
the land. These schools achieved so great repute that Anglo-Saxons
of high rank were eager to confide their children to Wilfred to be
brought up in one of his monastic establishments. At the close of
their school training they were to choose between the service of God
and that of the King. Wilfred is also to be credited with the
establishing within the English monasteries of a course of musical
instruction, the teachers of which had largely been trained in the
great school of Gregorian music at Canterbury.
Another of the Saxon abbots whose name remains associated
with the intellectual life of the monasteries was Benedict Biscop.
Montalembert speaks of Biscop as representing science and art in
the Church, as Wilfred had stood for the organising of the English
Church as a public body, and Cuthbert for the renewal and
development of its life. The monasteries of Wearmouth and of
Yarrow, founded by Biscop, were endowed with great libraries and
became the centres of an active literary life. Biscop made no less
than six journeys to Rome in the interest of his monastery work, and,
in the seventh century, a journey to Rome from Britain was not an
easy experience. His fourth expedition, begun in the year 671, was
undertaken partly in the interests of literature and for the purpose of
securing books for the education of his monks. He obtained in the
Papal capital a rich cargo of books, some of which he had purchased
while others were given to him. In Vienne, the ancient capital of
Gaul, he secured a further collection. The monastery of Wearmouth,
founded in 673, had the benefit of a large portion of the books
brought from Italy by the abbot. It was his desire that each
monastery for which he was responsible should possess a library,
which seemed to him indispensable for the instruction, discipline,
and the good organisation of the community. Biscop’s fifth journey
was made partly for the purpose of securing pictures, coloured
images, and artistic decorations for the chapel of the monastery, but
the sixth pilgrimage, made in 685, was again devoted almost entirely
to the collection of books.
For the details of the work of Biscop in the organisation of his
monasteries and in the supervision of the work in their scriptoria, and
concerning his various architectural and artistic undertakings, we are
largely indebted to the historian Beda, or Bede. Bede was a pupil of
Biscop in the monastery of Yarrow, and it was in this monastery that
were written the famous Chronicles. It was the time of comparative
peace in the island which preceded the first Danish invasion. The
fame of the scholar who produced these chronicles was destined to
eclipse that of nearly all the Saxon saints and kings, who were in fact
known to posterity principally through the pen of the Venerable Bede.
It is to Biscop, however, that should be credited the literary
surroundings under which Bede was educated, and it is probable
that without the stimulating influence of the books secured by the
abbot in his wearisome journeys to Southern Europe, the monk
would hardly have had the capacity or the incentive to complete his
work.
Coelfried, who later became Abbot of Yarrow, and who, after the
death of Biscop, was in charge also of the monastery of Wearmouth,
continued the interest of his predecessor in the libraries and in the
work done by the scribes in the scriptoria. Among the books brought
from Rome by Biscop was a curious work on cosmography, which
King Alfred was very anxious to possess. Abbot Coelfried finally
consented to let the King have the book in exchange for land
sufficient to support eight families. Coelfried had had made in the
scriptorium of Wearmouth two complete copies of the Bible
according to the version of S. Jerome, the text of which had been
brought from Rome. These copies were placed, one in the church of
Wearmouth and one in that of Yarrow, and were open for the use not
only of the monks, but of any others who might desire to consult
them and who might be able to read the script. Montalembert refers
to this instance as a refutation of “the stupid calumny” which
represents the Church as having in former times interdicted to her
children the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures.[134]
When Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborn in the year 705,
went to Canterbury to be consecrated by his old friend and
companion Berthwold (pariter literis studuerant, pariterque viam
religionis triverant—together they had studied literature and together
they had followed the path of religion), the Archbishop kept him there
many days, taking counsel with him about the affairs of his diocese.
Hearing of the arrival during this time of ships at Dover, he went
there to inspect their unloading and to see if they had brought
anything in his way (si quid forte commodum ecclesiastico usui
attulissent nautæ qui e Gallico sinu in Angliam provecti librorum
copiam apportassent—to see whether the ships which had arrived
from the French coast had brought, with the books which formed a
part of their cargoes, any volumes of value for the work of the
Church). Among many other books he saw one containing the whole
of the Old and New Testaments, which book he bought, and which,
according to William of Malmesbury, who in the twelfth century wrote
the life of Aldhelm, was at that time still preserved at Sherborn.[135]
The great Bible given by King Offa, in 780, to the church at
Worcester is described in the chronicle of Malmesbury as Magnam
Bibliam.[136] As before indicated, however, the common name of this
time for a collection of the Scriptures was not Biblia but Bibliotheca.
In a return of their property which the monks of St. Riquier at Centule
made in the year 831, by order of Louis the Débonnaire, we find,
among a considerable quantity of books: Bibliotheca integra ubi
continentur libri lxxii., in uno volumine (a complete Bible, in which
seventy-two books are comprised in one volume), and also
Bibliotheca dispersa in voluminibus xiv.[137] (a Bible divided into
fourteen volumes).
Fleury says of Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux: Étant abbé, il amassa à
Gembloux plus de cent volumes d’auteurs ecclésiastiques, et
cinquante d’auteurs profanes, ce qui passoit pour une grande
Bibliothèque.[138] Warton, using Fleury for his authority, speaks of
the “incredible labour and immense expense” which Olbert had given
to the formation of this library. There is, however, no authority in the
quotation from Fleury for such a description of the exceptional nature
of the labour and of the outlay. On the contrary, Fleury goes on to
say that Olbert, who had been sent to reform and restore the
monastery, which was in a state of great poverty and disorder, had
put the monks to work at writing, in order to keep them from being
idle. He himself set an example of industry as a scribe by writing out,
with his own hand, the whole of the Old and the New Testament, a
work which was completed in the year 1040.[139] Maitland calculates
that a scribe must be both expert and industrious to perform in less
than ten months the task of transcribing all the books of the Old and
the New Testament. He estimates, further, that at the rate at which
the law stationers of London paid their writers in his time (1845),
such a transcript would cost, for the writing only, between sixty and
seventy pounds.[140]
The sterling service rendered by King Alfred to the literary
interests of England was important in more ways than one, and while
his work does not strictly belong to the record of the English
monasteries, it may properly enough be associated with the literary
history of the English Church; for the King had been adopted as a
spiritual son by Pope Leo IV., and in organising and supervising the
work of the Church, he took upon himself a large measure of the
responsibilities which later were discharged by the Primate. Alfred
ruled over the West Saxons from 871 to 901. His reign was a stormy
one, and during a number of years it seemed doubtful whether the
existence of the little Saxon Kingdom could be maintained against
the assaults of the Danes. There came finally, however, a period of
peace when Alfred, with Winchester as his capital, was able to give
attention to the organisation of education in his kingdom.
During the long years of invasion and of civil war, the literary
interests and culture that had come to the Saxons through the
Romans had been in great part swept away. The collections of books
had been burned and could not be replaced because the clerics had
forgotten their Latin. Alfred complained that at the time of his
accession in Winchester he could not find south of the Thames a
single Englishman able to translate a letter from Latin into English.
“When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before it
had all been ravaged and burned, how the churches throughout the
whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there
was also a great multitude of God’s servants, but they had very little
knowledge of the books; they could not understand any of them
because they were not written in their own language.” Alfred can find
but one explanation for the omission of the “good and wise men who
were formerly all over England” to leave translations of these books.
“They did not think that men could ever be so careless and that
learning could so soon decay.” The King recalls, however, that there
are still left many who “can read English writing.” “I began therefore
among the many and manifold troubles of this Kingdom, to translate
into English the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis and in
English Shepherd’s Book (Hirdeboc), sometimes word for word and
sometimes according to the sense, as I had learned it from
Plegmund, my Archbishop, and Asser, my Bishop, and Grimbold my
Mass-priest, and John my Mass-priest.”[141] It will be noted in these
references of King Alfred, that the collections of books, the loss of
which he laments, had been contained in the churches. It was also to
the ecclesiastics that he was turning for help in the work of rendering
into English the instruction for his people to be found in the few Latin
volumes that had been preserved.
Jusserand says that Asser was to Alfred what Alcuin had been to
Charlemagne, and that he helped the King, by means of the
production of translations and by founding schools, to preserve and
to spread learning. King Alfred was, however, not content with using
his royal authority and influence for the instituting of schools, but
himself gave to work as a translator personal time and labour which
must have been spared with difficulty from his duties as a ruler and
as a military commander. He chooses for his translations books likely
to fill up the greatest gaps in the minds of his countrymen, “some
books that are most needful for all men to know”: the Book of
Orosius, which is to serve as a hand-book of universal history; the
Chronicles of Bede, that will instruct them concerning the history of
their own ancestors; the Pastoral Rule of S. Gregory, which will
make clear to churchmen their ecclesiastical duties; and the
Consolation of Philosophy of Boëthius, recommended as a guide for
the lives of both ecclesiastics and laymen. These royal translations
are at once placed in the scriptoria of the monasteries and in the
writing-rooms of the monastery schools for manifolding, and secure
through these channels an immediate and important educational
influence.
It is also under the instructions of Alfred that the old national
chronicles, written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, are copied, corrected,
and continued. Of these chronicles, seven, more or less complete
and differing from each other to some extent, have been preserved.
The history of the world presents possibly no other instance of a
monarch who devoted himself so steadfastly, with his own personal
labour, to the educational and spiritual development of his people.
In the latter portion of the tenth century, S. Dunstan, Archbishop of
Canterbury under King Edgar, takes up the task of instructing the
clergy and people. Under his influence, new monasteries are
endowed, a further series of monastery schools is instituted, and
special attention is given in the scriptoria and in the writing-rooms of
the schools to the production of copies of translations of pious works.
The special literary feature of the work done in Dunstan’s school was
the attention given to the production of collections of sermons in the
vulgar tongue. A number of these collections has been preserved, an
example of which, known as the Blickling Homilies (from Blickling
Hall, Norfolk, where the MS. was found) was compiled before 971.
The series also included homilies by Ælfric, who was Abbot of
Eynsham in 1005, and sermons of Wulfstan, who was Bishop of York
in 1002.
The canons of Ælfric were written between the years 950 and
1000. The authorities do not appear to be clear whether these
canons were the work of the Archbishop or of a grammarian of the
same name, while, according to one theory, the Archbishop and the
grammarian were the same person. The canons were addressed to
Wulfin, Bishop of Sherborn, and they were written in such a form that
the Bishop might communicate them to his clergy as a kind of
episcopal charge. The twenty-first canon orders: “Every priest also,
before he is ordained, must have the arms belonging to his spiritual
work; that is, the holy books, namely, the Psalter, the Book of
Epistles, the Book of Gospels, the Missal, the Book of Hymns, the
Manual, the Calendar (Computus), the Passional, the Penitential, the
Lectionary. These books a priest requires and cannot do without, if
he would properly fulfil his office and desires to teach the law to the
people belonging to him. And let him carefully see that they are well
written.”[142]
The library of the English monastery or priory was under the care
of the chantor, who could neither sell, pawn, nor lend books without
an equivalent pledge; he might, however, with respect to
neighbouring churches or to persons of consideration, relax
somewhat the strictness of this rule. In the case of a new foundation,
the King sometimes sent letters-patent to the different abbeys
requesting them to give copies of theological and religious books in
their own collections. In certain instances, the King himself provided
such transcripts for the new foundation. In the catalogue of the
abbatial libraries of England, prepared by Leland, record is found of
only the following classics: Cicero and Aristotle (these two appear in
nearly all the catalogues), Terence, Euclid, Quintus Curtius, Sidonius
Apollinaris, Julius Frontinus, Apuleius, and Seneca.[143] It is difficult
from such a list to arrive at the basis or standard of selection.
Thomas Duffus Hardy gives some interesting information
concerning the later literary and historical work done in the
monasteries of Britain,[144] and for a portion of the following notes
concerning this work I am chiefly indebted to him. The Abbey of St.
Albans was founded towards the close of the eighth century, but it
was not until the latter part of the eleventh century, or nearly three
hundred years later, that the scriptorium was instituted. The
organisation of the scriptorium was due to Paul, the fourteenth
abbot, who presided over the monastery from 1077 to 1093, and
who had the assistance in this work of the Bishop Lanfranc. Paul
was by birth a Norman, and was esteemed a man of learning as well
as of piety. After the scriptorium had been opened, the abbot placed
in it eight Psalters, a Book of Collects, a Book of Epistles, a book
containing the Gospels for the year, two Gospels bound in gold and
silver and ornamented with gems, and twenty-eight other notable
volumes. In addition to these, there was a number of ordinals,
costumals, missals, troparies, collectories, and other books for the

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