Process engineering applications often lead to non-smooth constrained optimization problems in which the objective function and/or the constraints have non-differentiabilities and step discontinuities. Since the objective function is often the outcome of a complex simulation or the outcome of a lower level optimization problem, it may also be noisy and not defined in some point. In this work we propose and test a new hybrid direct search method for constrained non-smooth discontinuous problems which combines the positive features of Particle Swarm, Generating Set Search, and Complex, that we refer to as PGS-COM. Computational results show that PGS-COM outperforms the main available methods and exhibits considerable robustness to non-smoothness, unrelaxable constraints, evaluation failures and numerical noise.
Process engineering applications often lead to non-smooth constrained optimization problems in which the objective function and/or the constraints have non-differentiabilities and step discontinuities. Since the objective function is often the outcome of a complex simulation or the outcome of a lower level optimization problem, it may also be noisy and not defined in some point. In this work we propose and test a new hybrid direct search method for constrained non-smooth discontinuous problems which combines the positive features of Particle Swarm, Generating Set Search, and Complex, that we refer to as PGS-COM. Computational results show that PGS-COM outperforms the main available methods and exhibits considerable robustness to non-smoothness, unrelaxable constraints, evaluation failures and numerical noise.
An interdisciplinary study of hair through the art, philosophy, and science of fifteenth-century Florence. In this innovative cultural history, hair is the portal through which Emanuele Lugli accesses the cultural production of Lorenzo il Magnifico’s Florence. Lugli reflects on the ways writers, doctors, and artists expressed religious prejudices, health beliefs, and gender and class subjugation through alluring works of art, in medical and political writings, and in poetry. He considers what may have compelled Sandro Botticelli, the young Leonardo da Vinci, and dozens of their contemporaries to obsess over braids, knots, and hairdos by examining their engagement with scientific, philosophical, and theological practices. By studying hundreds of fifteenth-century documents that engage with hair, Lugli foregrounds hair’s association to death and gathers insights about human life at a time when Renaissance thinkers redefined what it meant to be human and to be alive. Lugli uncovers overlooked perceptions of hair when it came to be identified as a potential vector for liberating culture, and he corrects a centuries-old prejudice that sees hair as a trivial subject, relegated to passing fashion or the decorative. He shows hair, instead, to be at the heart of Florentine culture, whose inherent violence Lugli reveals by prompting questions about the entanglement of politics and desire.
During the Renaissance, measuring played a critical role in shaping trade, material production (ranging from architecture to tailoring), warfare, legal studies, and even our understanding of the heavens and hell. This study delves into the applications of measuring, with a particular emphasis on the Italian states, and traces its wide-ranging cultural effects. The homogeneization of measurements was endorsed as a means to achieve political unity. The careful retrieval of ancient standards instilled a sense of connection and ownership toward the past. Surveying was fundamental in the process of establishing colonies. This study not only examines the perceived advantages of measuring, but it also highlights the overlooked distorting aspect of this activity. Measuring was not just a neutral quantification process but also a creative one. By suppressing or emphasizing information about the material world, measuring influenced people's perceptions and shaped their ideas about what was possible and what could be accomplished.
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