Abstract: 〈 p 〉 This book is about the disassembly of end-of-life products with particular emphasis on methods and techniques for solving the Disassembly Line Balancing Problem. 〈 /p 〉 〈 p 〉 Disassembly is viewed as "the systematic separation and extracting valuable entities for possible future re-usage". In fact, disassembly is a distinct phase of the product lifecycle. It follows the "before life" phases (such as design and economical evaluation), "useful period" phases (such as manufacturing, distribution, usage and maintenance) and "end of life" phases (such as collecting, sorting). Disassembly might represent the essential first phase of the future activities, such as re-use and re-manufacturing and recycle. Due to the ever higher public awareness, the more and more strict regulations concerning environment quality preservation and increasing economic effectiveness and attractiveness for industry, the activities of recovering valuable parts and subassemblies have become a desirable alternative to the old fashioned disposal processes of end-of-life products. 〈 /p 〉 〈 p 〉 The authors state, in the preface of the book, that the "disassembly line seems to be the most efficient way to disassemble a product". Consequently, the primary concern of the book is "the complete disassembly of [end-of-life] products on a paced disassembly line for component/material recovery purposes". The authors aim at investigating "the qualitative and quantitative aspects of multi-criteria solution sequences using the various combinatorial optimization techniques" (page 16) to solve the Disassembly Line Balancing Problem (DLPB). The DLBP consists in finding a disassembly feasible solution sequence which preserves precedence constraints and aims at attaining several objectives, such as minimizing the number of work stations and total idle time, ensuring similar idle time at each work station, while attempting to remove hazardous parts and materials and extracting highly demanded product components at the earliest moments possible and minimizing the number of direction changes required for disassembly (removing parts with similar part removal directions together), (page 102). 〈 /p 〉 〈 p 〉 The book is composed of 29 chapters grouped into three parts entitled "Disassembly Background", "Disassembly-Line Balancing" and "Further Disassembly-Line Considerations" which address general aspects concerning disassembly processes, variations of methods and techniques to solve the DLBP, and other problems related to the disassembly line, respectively. 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 Part I comprises six chapters which are meant to set the stage for the subsequent chapters. Various information concerning disassembly processes, assembly lines, disassembly lines, other related researches, graphical representations and computational complexity of combinatorial problems are provided. 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 Part II is made up of 20 chapters and addresses the statement and analysis of the DLBP and several specific variations of methods and techniques which were adapted for solving the problem, tested on four application cases exprimental instances and compared. The objectives of this part of the book are: stating the mathematical model of DLBP, establishing the difficulty of the problem by using the complexity theory and determining the data sets and evaluation criteria to be used in analyzing the problem and solving techniques which are selected (page 99). 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 It is demonstrated (in chapter 9) that the DLBP is a complex NP complete problem in the strong sense and necessitates specialized solution techniques. Accordingly, authors plea for combinatorial optimization approaches and select several algorithms to solve the problem. The techniques to be utilized to solve the DLBP are introduced in chapter 10 and their usage and performances in solving the problem are presented in chapters 12 through 19. There are seven techniques which are adapted, tested and compared. The exhaustive search is used to provide the optimal solution. Two metaheuristic approaches (genetic algorithms and ant colony optimization) are next studied. Two purely deterministic searches (the greedy algorithm and the "hunter-killer" search) and two 2-phase hybrid methods are adapted and tested. 〈 /p 〉 〈 p 〉 The four experimental instances (the eight-part personal computer, the enhanced 10-part DLBP case, the 25-part cellular instance, and the size independent "a priori" benchmark with a known optimal solution) are described in chapter 11. Chapter 20 contains a detailed comparison of the six heuristic and metaheuristic techniques as applied to the DLBP with respect to several performance measures. Several complementary research results are reviewed in chapter 21 together with future research directions. 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 Disassembly processes interact with other "before life", "useful", and "after life" periods of product usage and recovery. As a result, to make the picture complete, Part III addresses other areas of disassembly research such as product planning, line and facility design, operations scheduling and sequencing, inventory, "just-in-time", revenue and unbalanced lines (chapter 22 through 29). 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 The authors of the book form a team who may be viewed as a fine and synergic combination of two complementary experiences and backgrounds from academia and industry. Seamus McGovern, an Electronics Engineer at the Volpe National Transportation System Center, holds a commission in the US Navy as an aerospace duty engineer as well as a part-time industrial engineering faculty appointment at the Northeastern University. Surendra M. Gupta is a professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and a director of the Laboratory for Responsible Manufacturing at the Northeastern University. He has authored/co-authored over 400 technical papers and is a pioneer in the domain of the book. 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 This book represents a very valuable work in a rather young research domain, which may be viewed as opened by the pioneering paper of Güngör and Gupta entitled "Disassembly Line in product Recovery (International Journal of Production Recovery, 40 (11), 2002). The volume mainly reflects the original studies of authors and their colleagues. It also makes an exhaustive and systematic review of the results which are reported in the domain scientific literature and are due to other scientists. The organization of the document is well thought and the presentation style is rigorous and clear. Subsequently, though information content is very dense and diverse, the book is accessible and its study is scientifically rewarding. Special remarks can be made to the uniform and coherent notation which is used throughout the book and to graphical illustrations. A final remark of appreciation is to be made to the excellent quality of editing and printing of the book due to the staff of McGraw-Hill Companies. 〈 br / 〉 〈 br / 〉 In conclusion, the book is a timely work which contains relevant, inspiring and challenging information. Therefore, this reviewer warmly recommends it to the readers of academia and industry as well who are interested in modern manufacturing issues and combinatorial optimization methods and software. 〈 /p 〉 〈 p 〉   〈 /p 〉

Abstract: Sudden disasters may damage facilities, transportation networks and other critical infrastructures, delay rescue and bring huge losses. Facility selection and reliable transportation network play an important role in emergency rescue. In this paper, the reliability level between two points in a network is defined from the point of view of minimal edge cut and path, respectively, and the equivalence of these two definitions is proven. Based on this, a multi-objective optimization model is proposed. The first goal of the model is to minimize the total service distance, and the second goal is to maximize the network reliability level. The original model is transformed into a model with three objectives, and the three objectives are combined into one objective by the method of weighting. The model is applied to a case, and the results are analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the model.

Abstract: As an international scientific journal, Studies in Informatics and Control (SIC ) covers the field of Information Technology (IT) and topics related to research areas, as well as important applications in IT, with particular emphasis on Advanced Automatic Control, Modeling and Optimization. SIC has greatly contributed to the areas where it involves since its first online publication way back in 1992. This paper sets out to analyze the structure and the underlying trend of the journal by making use of bibliometric methods. Firstly, the classical indicators are provided to illustrate the performance of the journal. This current study performs an in-depth analysis of the most productive and the most influential authors, institutions, and countries/regions, as well as the most cited research works published in SIC. Secondly, the visualization tools VoS viewer and CiteSpace are used to create scientific maps that may explain the structure of the journal in an intuitionistic way. In the science mapping, the co-citation maps, and the co-authorship networks of various items (such as authors, institutions, and countries/regions) are conducted. Also, the bursts detection of these items are derived. The co-occurrence of keywords and their bursts detection and timeline review are shown, respectively. Finally, some conclusions are given. This paper provides a comprehensive and visual understanding of this well-regarded scientific journal.

Abstract: In 1965 Lotfi A. Zadeh published "Fuzzy Sets", his pioneering and controversialpaper, that now reaches almost 100,000 citations. All Zadeh’s papers were citedover 185,000 times. Starting from the ideas presented in that paper, Zadeh foundedlater the Fuzzy Logic theory, that proved to have useful applications, from consumerto industrial intelligent products. We are presenting general aspects of Zadeh’s contributionsto the development of Soft Computing(SC) and Artificial Intelligence(AI),and also his important and early influence in the world and in Romania. Severalearly contributions in fuzzy sets theory were published by Romanian scientists, suchas: Grigore C. Moisil (1968), Constantin V. Negoita & Dan A. Ralescu (1974), DanButnariu (1978). In this review we refer the papers published in "From Natural Languageto Soft Computing: New Paradigms in Artificial Intelligence" (2008, Eds.: L.A.Zadeh, D. Tufis, F.G. Filip, I. Dzitac), and also from the two special issues (SI) of theInternational Journal of Computers Communications & Control (IJCCC, founded in2006 by I. Dzitac, F.G. Filip & M.J. Manolescu; L.A. Zadeh joined in 2008 to editorialboard). In these two SI, dedicated to the 90th birthday of Lotfi A. Zadeh (2011), andto the 50th anniversary of "Fuzzy Sets" (2015), were published some papers authoredby scientists from Algeria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Hungary, Greece, Germany,Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain,Taiwan, UK and USA.

Abstract: Disassembly is part of the demanufacturing and it is meant to obtain components and materials from end-of-life products. An essential performance objective of a disassembly process is the benefits it brings, that is the revenue brought by the retrieved parts and material, diminished by the cost of their retrieval operations. A decision must be taken to balance an automatic disassembly line. A well balanced line will decrease the cost of disassembly operations. An evolutionary (genetic) algorithm is used to deal with the multi-criteria optimization problem of the disassembly scheduling.

Abstract: Although videoconferencing platforms were a growing market even before the Covid-19 pandemic, they became very popular and widely used within weeks of the beginning of the pandemic. The compulsion of social distancing, lockdown, the need to work from home have led to an exponential demand for videoconferencing applications and an adaptation of the way we carry out our current activities such as work, decision-making, communicating with family and colleagues, or education. With the diversification of the categories of users of videoconferencing systems and the contexts in which they were used, many other needs have emerged and the demand to adapt these platforms, both in terms of ease of use and functionality, as well as security. Videoconferencing systems are no longer meant only for decision-makers or trainers, but also for general public. This paper reviews various data regarding the use of videoconferencing systems in recent years, a number of problems encountered by users, and expected trends in the future.

Abstract: On 6th February, Professor Ioan Dzitac passed away.  

Abstract: 〈 p 〉 Welcome to the International Journal of Computers, Communications & amp; Control (IJCCC), a new scientific journal 〈 br / 〉 in Computer Science. 〈 /p 〉