This paper presents a literature review for inventory control of deteriorating items since 2018. A classification including 18 classes and 33 subclasses is offered to categorize inventory control models, constraints, and solution methods used in previous studies. Providing standard classes in this field, such as demand, deterioration, shortages, number of warehouses, and time value of money alongside new classes, for example, the type of model costs and supply chain, inventory constraints, number of supply chain levels, time horizon, lead time, considering multi-item models, preservation technology, financial conditions, non-instantaneous deteriorating items, environmental issues, and solution methods made this classification more comprehensive. A brief history and explanation are given to understand each class better, and related articles are grouped in these classes. The research gaps and a crucial aspect that paves the way for future research are presented in each category. A broad view of the future of this topic is provided, and exciting opportunities are highlighted for researchers to contribute to this field and inspire them to explore these potential areas of research. The potential for future research in this subject is vast and promising; this article offers numerous opportunities for researchers to make significant contributions. The results show that the best ways to extend this topic are using variable deterioration rates, costs, and demand functions, considering realistic assumptions, including allowable shortages with partial backlogging, two warehouses, inflation and discounts, preservation technology, uncertain lead time, and environmental issues. Developing cyclic (if possible), multi-item, and production models with financial conditions and various inventory constraints is an excellent way to develop existing models. Finally, solving the proposed models using exact methods to find the global answer is a great effort to contribute to this field.

In today's fiercely competitive retail landscape, implementing effective pricing strategies is critical not only for boosting sales but also for securing a larger market share and ensuring long-term business sustainability. The ability to capture a greater share of the market directly influences a retailer's positioning and competitive edge, making pricing decisions pivotal. This paper introduces a hybrid optimization model that strategically combines Everyday Low Pricing (EDLP) and High-Low Pricing (HL) strategies, designed to address the intricacies of dynamic retail markets. The model is initially formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem aimed at maximizing sales to increase market share, all while maintaining profitability within a predefined threshold to ensure the retailer does not incur losses. To enhance the model's practical applicability, particularly in small-scale scenarios, the nonlinear problem is transformed into a Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) model, facilitating its solvability. However, as retail applications scale up, the computational complexity becomes more challenging, necessitating the use of the Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm. The GWO algorithm effectively balances computational efficiency with solution quality, making it a robust approach for large-scale problems. A significant contribution of this research is the linearization of the model under conditions where the products designated for High-Low pricing (referred to as 'Golden' products) are predetermined by the retailer. This linearization simplifies the computational process, enabling the model to scale and be applied in large retail settings. Developed in collaboration with a major Iranian supermarket chain, the model leverages real-world data to optimize discount levels and timing across various product categories. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate the model's effectiveness in increasing sales, thereby contributing to a larger market share while ensuring that profitability remains within acceptable bounds. By providing actionable insights and strategic recommendations, this research offers a practical, scalable solution for optimizing retail pricing strategies in a data-driven and competitive environment, ultimately supporting retailers in their quest to dominate the market.

The stochastic contextual bandit problem, recognized for its effectiveness in navigating the classic exploration-exploitation dilemma through ongoing player-environment interactions, has found broad applications across various industries. This utility largely stems from the algorithms’ ability to accurately forecast reward functions and maintain an optimal balance between exploration and exploitation, contingent upon the precise selection and calibration of hyperparameters. However, the inherently dynamic and real-time nature of bandit environments significantly complicates hyperparameter tuning, rendering traditional offline methods inadequate. While specialized methods have been developed to overcome these challenges, they often face three primary issues: difficulty in adaptively learning hyperparameters in ever-changing environments, inability to simultaneously optimize multiple hyperparameters for complex models, and inefficiencies in data utilization and knowledge transfer from analogous tasks. To tackle these hurdles, this paper introduces an innovative transfer learning-based approach designed to harness past task knowledge for accelerated optimization and dynamically optimize multiple hyperparameters, making it well-suited for fluctuating environments. The method employs a dual Gaussian meta-model strategy—one for transfer learning and the other for assessing hyperparameters’ performance within the current task —enabling it to leverage insights from previous tasks while quickly adapting to new environmental changes. Furthermore, the framework’s meta-model-centric architecture enables simultaneous optimization of multiple hyperparameters. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that this approach markedly outperforms competing methods in scenarios with perturbations and exhibits superior performance in 70% of stationary cases while matching performance in the remaining 30%. This superiority in performance, coupled with its computational efficiency on par with existing alternatives, positions it as a superior and practical solution for optimizing hyperparameters in contextual bandit settings.

Nowadays, online social networks play a crucial role in shaping human communication in various life activities. Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides valuable insights for businesses, authorities, and platform owners. One of the challenging tasks in SNA is detecting sequential change points in observed events in social networks when the parameters of statistical distribution of post-change networks are unknown. This challenging problem is particularly prominent in various real-world network systems, especially when the events in the networks can be modeled through a Hawkes process. Identifying change points in the stream of social network data, where the underlying statistical properties undergo significant changes, necessitates the development of adaptive online algorithms. Additionally, in cases where the use of maximum likelihood estimators is impractical or when no exact recursive function for likelihood is available, addressing this issue becomes more complex. This paper proposes likelihood estimators using online convex optimization methods, incorporating the adaptive moment estimation (ADAM) algorithm. The proposed method is seamlessly integrated into the sequential anomaly detection procedure for events in social networks. Experimental results on monitoring time between events demonstrate lower Expected Delay Detection (EDD), indicating the superiority of the proposed algorithm in both synthetic and real-world datasets such as Facebook and contact networks of individuals causing disease transmission. The proposed robust solution provides an efficient practical tool in situations where traditional methods face limitations in swift detection with high accuracy.

The rapid growth of online shopping has intensified the need for cost-effective and efficient delivery systems, posing a significant challenge for businesses worldwide. This study proposes an innovative two-phase methodology that uses a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for efficient last-mile logistics with service options (ELMLSO) such as home delivery, self-pickup, and differently-priced services. This approach aims to streamline last-mile logistics by integrating these service options, resulting in a more comprehensive and effective delivery network that enhances customer satisfaction and maintains a competitive edge. The first phase employs the Ordinal Preference Analysis - Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (OPA-EDAS) method to select optimal pickup and delivery centers. The second phase identifies the optimal route using a bi-objective mixed-integer mathematical model, striving to balance cost minimization and customer satisfaction maximization. The Normalized Normal Constraint Method (NNCM) is utilized to solve this model. The application of these methods results in considerable cost savings and improved customer satisfaction, offering valuable insights for managers within the last-mile logistics industry.

As the simple assembly line balancing problem type 1 (SALBP1) has been proven to be NP-hard, heuristic and metaheuristic approaches are widely used for solving middle to large instances. Nevertheless, the characteristics (fitness landscape) of the problem’s search space have not been studied so far and no rigorous justification for implementing various metaheuristic methods has been presented. Aiming to fill this gap in the literature, this study presents the first comprehensive and in-depth Fitness Landscape Analysis (FLA) study for SALBP1. The FLA was performed by generating a population of 1000 random solutions and improving them to local optimal solution, and then measuring various statistical indices such as average distance, gap, entropy, amplitude, length of the walk, autocorrelation, and fitness-distance among all solutions, to understand the complexity, structure, and topology of the solution space. We solved 83 benchmark problems with various cycle times taken from Scholl’s dataset which required 83000 local searches from initial to optimal solutions. The analysis showed that locally optimal assembly line balances in SALBP1 are distributed nearly uniformly in the landscape of the problem, and the small average difference between the amplitudes of the initial and optimal solutions implies that the landscape was almost plain. In addition, the large average gap between local and global solutions showed that global optimum solutions in SALBP1 are difficult to find, but the problem can be effectively solved using a single-solution-based metaheuristic to near-optimality. In addition to the FLA, a new mathematical formulation for the entropy (diversity) of solutions in the search space for SALBP1 is also presented in this paper.

Suppliers can use different strategies to distribute their products, Among the most common complex optimization problems related to the transportation of products is the traveling salesman problem. In the traveling-salesman problem, a route is chosen that visits each node exactly once, taking into account the shortest travel time, and finally returns to the original node. In this problem, all nodes must be visited. If we consider the application of this problem in logistics, we can study the necessity of this problem in transportation means such as trucks or drones. The upcoming paper is thoroughly studied and researched considering the related articles published in the last three decades, and bibliometric analysis is used for the details of this problem. This paper aims to statistically evaluate the influence and importance of the traveling salesman on logistics without considering financial risk by presenting an analysis of the works published between 1983 and 2023. As part of our comprehensive literature review table with analysis of export, we will conduct a comprehensive review of the most relevant articles in the field from 2020 to 2023 to better understand the trend in the subject in the last few years. Data were obtained from the Web of Science and focused on metrics such as the total number of publications, citations, average citations per publication, and trending countries. Graphical and statistical analysis was performed using Excel and R-Studio. China, the USA, and Germany are the countries with the most publications. Laporte is the most prolific author with 8 publications. Much research has been done on this topic, especially in the Journal of transportation research part E-logistic with 43 articles, and the main application areas are logistics, vehicles, and drones. These data may prove useful to researchers seeking an overview of the traveling salesman problem to determine future research directions.

Considering the very important medicinal and biological properties of heterocycles including isatin skeleton, synthesis of isatin-containing compounds has attracted the attention of medicinal and organic chemists, especially researchers involved in the synthesis of heterocycles. The present review focuses on the recent investigation in the synthesis of heterocycles with isatin moiety using isatin derivatives as reaction reactants via multi-component for the period of 2014–2024. The reports were classified according to the conditions of the reactions, which distinguishes this review from similar studies. In some reports, green chemistry has been used, such as the use of green solvent, green and reusable catalyst, solvent-free conditions, microwave irradiations and ultrasonic irradiations. Most reviews of isatin published so far have focused only on spirooxindoles, but this review not only addresses the condition for the synthesis of spirooxindoles, but also the synthesis of other isatin-contaning heterocycles such as pyrroloquinolines, imidazole-indoles and pyrazoloquinoline. The main objective of this review is to present an overview of the latest methodologies involving isatin in the multicomponent synthesis of heterocyclic compounds, specifically for organic and medicinal chemists.

There have been many applications for machine learning algorithms in different fields. The importance of hyperparameters for machine learning algorithms is their control over the behaviors of training algorithms and their crucial impact on the performance of machine learning models. Tuning hyperparameters crucially affects the performance of machine learning algorithms, and future advances in this area mainly depend on well-tuned hyperparameters. Nevertheless, the high computational cost involved in evaluating the algorithms in large datasets or complicated models is a significant limitation that causes inefficiency of the tuning process. Besides, increased online applications of machine learning approaches have led to the requirement of producing good answers in less time. The present study first presents a novel classification of hyperparameter types based on their types to create high-quality solutions quickly. Then, based on this classification and using the hypergradient technique, some hyperparameters of deep learning algorithms are adjusted during the training process to decrease the search space and discover the optimal values of the hyperparameters. This method just needs only the parameters of the previous two steps and the gradient of the previous step. Finally, the proposed method is combined with other techniques in hyperparameter optimization, and the results are reviewed in two case studies. As confirmed by experimental results, the performance of the algorithms with the proposed method have been increased 36.62% and 23.16% (based on the best average accuracy) for Cifar10 and Cifar100 dataset respectively in early stages while the final produced answers with this method are equal to or better than the algorithms without it. Therefore, this method can be combined with hyperparameter optimization algorithms in order to improve their performance and make them more appropriate for online use by just using the parameters of the previous two steps and the gradient of the previous step.

In this report, a facile and efficient method for the synthesis of imidazopyrimidine and triazolopyrimidine derivatives using cadmium incorporated fluoroapatite encapsulated γ-Fe2O3 magnetic nanocatalyst is presented. To investigate the catalytic properties of γ-Fe2O3@FAp@Cd nanocatalyst, one-pot three-component reaction of malononitrile, aromatic aldehydes and 2-aminobenzimidazole or 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole was used. In this method imidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidine and 1,2,4-triazolopyrimidine derivatives were obtained in short reaction time (10-15 minutes) and excellent yield (85-95%). The catalyst was characterized by using analytical techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, SEM, EDX, VSM and used in five consecutive runs without notable decrease in its catalytic performance.