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Tasnim Ibn Faiz

Publications and source records attributed to Tasnim Ibn Faiz.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

A Nationwide Multi-Location Multi-Resource Stochastic Programming Based Energy Planning Framework

The global increase in energy consumption and demand has forced many countries to transition into including more diverse energy sources in their electricity market. To efficiently utilize the available fuel resources, all energy sources must be optimized simultaneously. However, the inherent variability in variable renewable energy generators makes deterministic models ineffective. On the other hand, comprehensive stochastic models, including all sources of generation across a nation, can become computationally intractable. This work proposes a comprehensive national energy planning framework from a policymaker's perspective, which is generalizable to any country, region, or any group of countries in energy trade agreements. Given its relative land area and energy consumption globally, the United States is selected as a case study. A two-stage stochastic programming approach is adopted, and a scenario-based Benders decomposition modeling approach is employed to achieve computational efficiency for the large-scale model. Data is obtained from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's online data collection. Scenarios for the uncertain parameters are developed using a k-means clustering algorithm. Various cases are compared from a financial perspective to inform policymaking by identifying implementable cost-reduction strategies. The findings underscore the importance of promoting resource coordination and demonstrate the impact of increasing interchange and renewable energy capacity on overall gains. Moreover, the study highlights the value of stochastic optimization modeling compared to deterministic modeling to make energy planning decisions.

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Optimizing Return and Secure Disposal of Prescription Opioids to Reduce the Diversion to Secondary Users and Black Market

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) has reached an epidemic level in the US. Diversion of unused prescription opioids to secondary users and black market significantly contributes to the abuse and misuse of these highly addictive drugs, leading to the increased risk of OUD and accidental opioid overdose within communities. Hence, it is critical to design effective strategies to reduce the non-medical use of opioids that can occur via diversion at the patient level. In this paper, we aim to address this critical public health problem by designing strategies for the return and safe disposal of unused prescription opioids. We propose a data-driven optimization framework to determine the optimal incentive disbursement plans and locations of easily accessible opioid disposal kiosks to motivate prescription opioid users of diverse profiles in returning their unused opioids. We develop a Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) model to solve the decision problem, followed by a reformulation scheme using Benders Decomposition that results in a computationally efficient solution. We present a case study to show the benefits and usability of the model using a dataset created from Massachusetts All Payer Claims Data (MA APCD). Our proposed model allows the policymakers to estimate and include a penalty cost considering the economic and healthcare burden associated with prescription opioid diversion. Our numerical experiments demonstrate the ability of model and usefulness in determining optimal locations of opioid disposal kiosks and incentive disbursement plans for maximizing the disposal of unused opioids. The proposed optimization framework offers various trade-off strategies that can help government agencies design pragmatic policies for reducing the diversion of unused prescription opioids.

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A Robust Optimization Framework for Two-Echelon Vehicle and UAV Routing for Post-Disaster Humanitarian Logistics Operations

Providing first aid and other supplies (e.g., epi-pens, medical supplies, dry food, water) during and after a disaster is always challenging. The complexity of these operations increases when the transportation, power, and communications networks fail, leaving people stranded and unable to communicate their locations and needs. The advent of emerging technologies like uncrewed autonomous vehicles can help humanitarian logistics providers reach otherwise stranded populations after transportation network failures. However, due to the failures in telecommunication infrastructure, demand for emergency aid can become uncertain. To address the challenges of delivering emergency aid to trapped populations with failing infrastructure networks, we propose a novel robust computational framework for a two-echelon vehicle routing problem that uses uncrewed autonomous vehicles, or drones, for the deliveries. We formulate the problem as a two-stage robust optimization model to handle demand uncertainty. Then, we propose a column-and-constraint generation approach for worst-case demand scenario generation for a given set of truck and drone routes. Moreover, we develop a decomposition scheme inspired by the column generation approach to heuristically generate drone routes for a set of demand scenarios. Finally, we combine the heuristic decomposition scheme within the column-andconstraint generation approach to determine robust routes for both trucks and drones, the time that affected communities are served, and the quantities of aid materials delivered. To validate our proposed computational framework, we use a simulated dataset that aims to recreate emergency aid requests in different areas of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

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Computational Approaches for Solving Two-Echelon Vehicle and UAV Routing Problems for Post-Disaster Humanitarian Operations

Humanitarian logistics service providers have two major responsibilities immediately after a disaster: locating trapped people and routing aid to them. These difficult operations are further hindered by failures in the transportation and telecommunications networks, which are often rendered unusable by the disaster at hand. In this work, we propose a two-echelon vehicle routing framework for performing these operations using aerial uncrewed autonomous vehicles (UAVs or drones) to address the issues associated with these failures. In our proposed framework, we assume that ground vehicles cannot reach the trapped population directly, but they can only transport drones from a depot to some intermediate locations. The drones launched from these locations serve to both identify demands for medical and other aids (e.g., epi-pens, medical supplies, dry food, water) and make deliveries to satisfy them. Specifically, we present a decision framework, in which the resulting optimization problem is formulated as a two-echelon vehicle routing problem with trucks as the first echelon vehicles and for the second echelon vehicles, we consider two types of drones. Hotspot drones have the capability of providing a cell phone and internet reception and hence are used to capture demands. Delivery drones are subsequently employed to satisfy the observed demand. To handle demand uncertainty, we decompose the decision problem into two stages: providing telecommunications capabilities in the first stage thereby capturing demand precisely, and satisfying the resulting demands in the second stage. To solve the resulting models, we propose efficient computational approaches by designing a decomposition algorithm with column generation (CG)-based heuristics to identify optimal drone routes.

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Two-Stage Stochastic Optimization Frameworks to Aid in Decision-Making Under Uncertainty for Variable Resource Generators Participating in a Sequential Energy Market

Decisions for a variable renewable resource generators commitment in the energy market are typically made in advance when little information is obtainable about wind availability and market prices. Much research has been published recommending various frameworks for addressing this issue. However, these frameworks are limited as they do not consider all markets a producer can participate in. Moreover, current stochastic programming models do not allow for uncertainty data to be updated as more accurate information becomes available. This work proposes two decision-making frameworks for a wind energy generator participating in day-ahead, intraday, reserve, and balancing markets. The first framework is a two-stage stochastic convex optimization approach, where both scenario-independent and scenario-dependent decisions are made concurrently. The second framework is a series of four two-stage stochastic optimization models wherein the results from each model feed into each subsequent model allowing for scenarios to be updated as more information becomes available to the decision-maker. In the simulation experiments, the multi-phase framework performs better than the single-phase in every run, and results in an average profit increase of 7%. The proposed optimization frameworks aid in better decision-making while addressing uncertainty related to variable resource generators and maximize the return on investment.

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A Possibility Distribution Based Multi-Criteria Decision Algorithm for Resilient Supplier Selection Problems

Thus far, limited research has been performed on resilient supplier selection - a problem that requires simultaneous consideration of a set of numerical and linguistic evaluation criteria, which are substantially different from traditional supplier selection problem. Essentially, resilient supplier selection entails key sourcing decision for an organization to gain competitive advantage. In the presence of multiple conflicting evaluation criteria, contradicting decision makers, and imprecise decision relevant information (DRI), this problem becomes even more difficult to solve with the classical optimization approaches. However, prior research focusing on MCDA based supplier selection problem has been lacking in the ability to provide a seamless integration of numerical and linguistic evaluation criteria along with the consideration of multiple decision makers. To address these challenges, we present a comprehensive decision-making framework for ranking a set of suppliers from resiliency perspective. The proposed algorithm is capable of leveraging imprecise and aggregated DRI obtained from crisp numerical assessments and reliability adjusted linguistic appraisals from a group of decision makers. We adapt two popular tools - Single Valued Neutrosophic Sets (SVNS) and Interval-valued fuzzy sets (IVFS), and for the first time extend them to incorporate both crisp and linguistic evaluations in a group decision making platform to obtain aggregated SVNS and IVFS decision matrix. This information is then used to rank the resilient suppliers by using TOPSIS method. We present a case study to illustrate the mechanism of the proposed algorithm.

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A Column Generation Algorithm for Vehicle Scheduling and Routing Problems

During natural or anthropogenic disasters, humanitarian organizations face a series of time-sensitive tasks. One of the tasks involves picking up critical resources (e.g., first aid kits, blankets, water) from warehouses and delivering them to the affected people. To successfully deliver these items to the people in need, the organization needs to make decisions that range from the quick acquisition of vehicles from the local market, to the preparation of pickup and delivery schedules and vehicle routes. During crises, the supply of vehicles is often limited, their acquisition cost is steep, and special rental periods are imposed. At the same time, the affected area needs the aid materials as fast as possible, and deliveries must be made within due time. Therefore, it is imperative that the decisions of acquiring, scheduling, and routing of vehicles are made optimally and quickly. In this paper, we consider a variant of a truckload open vehicle routing problem with time windows, which is suitable for modeling vehicle routing operations during a humanitarian crisis. We present two integer linear programming models to formulate the problem, with the first one being an arc-based mixed integer linear programming model. The second model is a path-based integer linear programming model, for which we design two fast path generation algorithms. The first model is solved exactly using the commercial solver, while we propose to solve the second model within a column generation framework. Finally, we perform numerical experiments and compare the results obtained from the two models. We show that the path-based model, when solved with our column generation algorithm, outperforms the arc-based model in terms of solution time without sacrificing the solution quality.

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