Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550
DOI 10.1007/s00170-007-1048-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Using ant colony optimization to solve hybrid flow shop
scheduling problems
Kemal Alaykýran & Orhan Engin & Alper Döyen
Received: 27 November 2006 / Accepted: 11 April 2007 / Published online: 24 May 2007
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007
Abstract In recent years, most researchers have focused on
methods which mimic natural processes in problem solving.
These methods are most commonly termed “nature-
inspired” methods. Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a
new and encouraging group of these algorithms. The ant
system (AS) is the first algorithm of ACO. In this study, an
improved ACO method is used to solve hybrid flow shop
(HFS) problems. The n-job and k-stage HFS problem is one
of the general production scheduling problems. HFS
problems are NP-hard when the objective is to minimize
the makespan [1]. This research deals with the criterion of
makespan minimization for HFS scheduling problems. The
operating parameters of AS have an important role on the
quality of the solution. In order to achieve better results, a
parameter optimization study is conducted in this paper.
The improved ACO method is tested with benchmark
problems. The test problems are the same as those used by
Carlier and Neron (RAIRO-RO 34(1):1–25, 2000), Neron
et al. (Omega 29(6):501–511, 2001), and Engin and Döyen
(Future Gener Comput Syst 20(6):1083–1095, 2004). At
K. Alaykýran
Department of Industrial Engineering, Gazi University,
Ankara, Turkey
e-mail: kalaykiran@yahoo.com
O. Engin (*)
Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Selçuk University (Alladdin Keykubat Kampüsü Selçuklu),
Konya 42079, Turkey
e-mail: orhanengin@yahoo.com
A. Döyen
Department of Industrial Engineering, Boğaziçi University,
Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: alper.doyen@boun.edu.tr
the end of this study, there will be a comparison of the
performance of the proposed method presented in this paper
and the branch and bound (B&B) method presented by
Neron et al. (Omega 29(6):501–511, 2001). The results
show that the improved ACO method is an effective and
efficient method for solving HFS problems.
Keywords Ant colony optimization . Improved ant system .
Hybrid flow shop scheduling
1 Introduction
In a hybrid flow shop (HFS), machines are arranged into s
stages in series. In each stage k (k=1,..., s), there are mk
identical machines in parallel. Job j (j=1,..., n) has to be
processed on any one machine at each stage. Job j has finite
processing times at each stage (p1j, p2j,..., psj). Preemption
is not allowed and each machine can process at most one
operation at a time. The objective is to minimize the
makespan. The hybrid flow shop problems have been
proved to be NP-hard [5] when the objective is to minimize
the makespan in the case of max(M(1), M(2))>1, where M(l)
is the number of machines at stage l.
The branch and bound (B&B) method and heuristics are
the most often used methods to solve HFS problems
because of the NP-hard nature of the problem.
A previous study [6] which uses B&B as a solving
method shows that the minimum makespan is attained at
least for one member of the set of schedules, called
preferred schedules. Preferred schedules ensure less search-
ing effort. Later, a three-part B&B algorithm [7], which
consists of lower bound (LB) calculation, branching, and
node elimination parts, has been presented. The LB values
found in the study have been improved by a genetic
542 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550

Table 1 The ant colony optimization (ACO) studies in the literature

Problem Author(s) Year Algorithm

Traveling salesman problem Dorigo et al. [37] 1996 AS

Gambardella and Dorigo [38] 1995 Ant-Q
Dorigo and Gambardella [39] 1997 ACS
Stützle and Hoos [31] 1998 MMAS
Bullnheimer et al. [40] 1997 ASrank
Quadratic assignment Stützle and Hoos [31] 1998 MMAS-QAP
Maniezzo [41] 1998 ANTS-QAP
Maniezzo and Colorni [42] 1999 AS-QAP
Gambardella et al. [43] 1999 HAS-QAP
Vehicle routing Bullnheimer et al. [44] 1997 AS-VRP
Gambardella et al. [45] 1999 MACS-VRPTW
Adaptive ant net Schoonderwoerd et al. [46] 1996 ABC
White et al. [47] 2000 ASGA
Di Caro and Dorigo [48] 1998 AntNet-FS
Bonabeau et al. [49] 1998 ABC-smart ants
Non-adaptive ant net Di Caro and Dorigo [50] 1997 Ant Net
Subramanian et al. [51] 1997 ACS
Heusse et al. [52] 1998 CAF
van der Put and Rothkrantz [53] 1998 ABC-backward
Graphic painting Costa and Hertz [54] 1997 ANTCOL
Sequential ordering Gambardella and Dorigo [55] 1997 HAS-SOP
Discrete optimization Dorigo et al. [56] 1998 Ant
Job shop scheduling Colorni et al. [57] 1994 AS-JSP
Ventresca and Ombuki [58] 2004
Zhang et al. [59] 2004
Group shop scheduling Blum [60] 2002 Max-Min AS
Open shop scheduling Blum [61] 2005 Beam-ACO
Permutation flow shop scheduling Rajendran and Ziegler [62] 2004 Ant-Colony
Ying and Liao [35] 2004 Ant-Colony
Shyu et al. [34] 2004 Ant-Colony
Rajendran and Ziegler [63] 2005 Ant-Colony
Gajpal and Rajendran [64] 2006 Ant-Colony
Single-machine scheduling with total tardiness criteria den Besten et al. [65] 2003 ACO
Keyboard arrangement problem Eggers et al. [66] 2003 ACO
Maximal constraint ensuring problems Roli et al. [67] 2001 ACO
Resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) Bautista and Pereira [68] 2002 ACO
Merkle et al. [69] 2002 RCPSP
Luo et al. [70] 2003 Ant-Colony
Layout problem Solimanpur et al. [71] 2004 Ant-Colony
McKendall and Shang [72] 2006 Hybrid ant systems

algorithm (GA) [8]. Here, several heuristics have been
introduced to compute an initial upper bound (UB), and
then GA is used to improve that UB. Global LBs for
makespan (Cmax) minimization when it is not the case to
find optimal values have been proposed by Santos et al. [9].
In an effort to restrict the size of the search tree for a B&B
method, a branching rule has been adopted, and 13 heuristic
methods have been used to generate an initial lower bound
[10]. To increase the efficiency of B&B procedures, tests and
time-bound adjustments based on energetic reasoning and
global operations have been implemented [3]. A previous
study [11] has reduced the initial gap between upper and
lower bounds to half in a few minutes of running time.
Two polynomial bounded heuristic algorithms were
developed by Gupta and Tunç [12] to find an acceptable
solution for makespan minimization. It could solve prob-
lems with only two stages, where the first stage had only
one machine and the second stage allowed multiple
identical machines. Additionally, four heuristic algorithms
have been presented to minimize makespan for the problem
with separable setup and removal times [12]. As a
comparative study, three heuristic algorithms have been
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550
Fig. 1 Flow chart for the im-
proved ant colony optimization START
(ACO)
Initialize the parameters
Set k = 0
For each operation find
the average of idle waiting
times
Get a probability value
For each ant determine a
random beginning job
Determine the next node
and probability value
Update pheromone trails
k = k+1
k < topt;
Yes
No
STOP
presented and their results have been compared. The first
two heuristic algorithms have applied the rules used by
Campbell et al. [13] and the third algorithm was an
extension of a discussion presented by Gupta [14]. Another
comparative study [15] tests five different heuristics for
their performances of makespan and mean flow time
criteria. The effects of problem characteristics and the
performance of heuristics have been examined by regres-
sion analysis. The results have shown that structural
characteristics of the problems have a greater effect than
the type of the employed heuristics on performance. Some
of the researchers have studied a real-world problem that
has a particular structure (one machine in the first and third
stages and two dedicated machines in stage two) [16]. Two
Table 2 Parameter levels used
in the parameter optimization Parameter/level 1 2 3 4
α 0 1 2
β 0 1 2
ρ 0 0.1 0.2
543
heuristic methods have been proposed for this problem. The
local search methods, which are used to solve flow shop
and job scheduling, were adapted for HFS problems by
Negenmann [17]. After comparison, it was found that the
variable-depth and tabu search methods performed better
than the other algorithms. A tabu search algorithm for an
HFS problem with limited buffer capacities [18] has been
proposed. The HFS problem is solved by a proposed
artificial immune system (AIS) [4] algorithm. The results
have been compared with the results found in [3], which
have used B&B for the problems. It is shown that AIS is an
efficient and effective problem solving technique for HFS
problems. In the last few years, HFS problem studies have
been focused on studies with maintenance constraints [19,
20]. More works related to HFS problems can be found in
[10, 21–26].
In this study, we present an improved ant system (AS)
algorithm which uses the same formula as classical AS, but
with a different starting solution procedure. The character-
istics of ant colony optimization (ACO) and the formula of
AS are summarized in Sect. 2. In Sect. 3, the improved
algorithm is proposed. Also, the parameter optimizations
accomplished on HFS problems is shown. In Sect. 4, we
present an extensive computational study with the proposed
algorithm. Experiments and the computational results are
presented in Sect. 5. Finally, we conclude the paper with
some comments.
2 Ant colony optimization
Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are multi-agent
systems in which the behavior of each single agent, called
an artificial ant, is inspired by the behavior of real ants
[27]. ACO algorithms are one of the most successful
examples of swarm intelligent systems [28], and have been
applied to many classes of problems, ranging from the
classical traveling salesman problem to scheduling prob-
lems. Ants are able to find good solutions to shortest path
problems between a food source and their home colony.
ACO algorithms are inspired by the study of Charon and
Hudry [29] on a colony of Argentine ants to understand
how ants can find the shortest path from their nest to the
food source. The emergence of this shortest path selection
behavior can be explained in terms of autocatalysis
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
544 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550

Table 3 The best parameter set for the hybrid flow shop (HFS) (positive feedback) and differential path length, and it is
problem
made possible by an indirect form of communication,
α β ρ known as stigmergy [27]. It was found that the media used
to communicate among individuals’ information regarding
4 6 0.5 paths and used to decide where to go consists of pheromone

Table 4 Solutions to the HFS problems

Problem LB Best Cmax with improved AS % difference of improved AS Best Cmax with B&B % difference of B&B

j10c5a2 88 88 0 88 0
j10c5a3 117 117 0 117 0
j10c5a4 121 121 0 121 0
j10c5a5 122 124 1.6 122 0
j10c5a6 110 110 0 110 0
j10c5b1 130 131 0.7 130 0
j10c5b2 107 107 0 107 0
j10c5b3 109 109 0 109 0
j10c5b4 122 124 1.6 122 0
j10c5b5 153 153 0 153 0
j10c5b6 115 115 0 115 0
j10c5c1 68 68 0 68 0
j10c5c2 74 76 2 74 0
j10c5c3 71 72 1 71 0
j10c5c4 66 66 0 66 0
j10c5c5 78 78 0 78 0
j10c5c6 69 69 0 69 0
j10c10b1 163 163 0 163 0
j10c10b2 157 157 0 157 0
j10c10b3 169 169 0 169 0
j10c10b4 159 159 0 159 0
j10c10b5 165 165 0 165 0
j10c10b6 165 165 0 165 0
j10c10c1 113 118 4 127 12.4
j10c10c2 116 117 0.8 116 0
j10c10c3 98 108 10 133 35.7
j10c10c4 103 112 8 135 31.1
j10c10c5 121 126 4 145 19.8
j10c10c6 97 102 5 112 15.5
j15c5a1 178 178 0 178 0
j15c5a2 165 165 0 165 0
j15c5a3 130 132 1 130 0
j15c5a4 156 156 0 156 0
j15c5a5 164 166 1 164 0
j15c5a6 178 178 0 178 0
j15c5b1 170 170 0 170 0
j15c5b2 152 152 0 152 0
j15c5b3 157 157 0 157 0
j15c5b4 147 149 1 147 0
j15c5b5 166 166 0 166 0
j15c5b6 175 176 0.5 175 0
j15c5c1 85 85 0 85 0
j15c5c2 90 90 0 90 0
j15c5c3 87 87 0 87 0
j15c5c4 89 89 0 90 1.1
j15c5c5 73 73 0 84 15.1
j15c5c6 91 91 0 91 0
j15c5d1 167 167 0 167 0
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550 545

Table 4 (continued)

Problem LB Best Cmax with improved AS % difference of improved AS Best Cmax with B&B % difference of B&B

j15c5d2 82 86 4 85 3.7
j15c5d3 77 83 7 96 24.7
j15c5d4 61 84 37 101 65.6
j15c5d5 67 80 19 97 44.8
j15c5d6 79 79 0 87 10.1
j15c10a1 236 236 0 236 0
j15c10a2 200 200 0 200 0
j15c10a3 198 198 0 198 0
j15c10a4 225 228 1 225 0
j15c10a5 182 182 0 183 0.5
j15c10a6 200 200 0 200 0
j15c10b1 222 222 0 222 0
j15c10b2 187 188 0.5 187 0
j15c10b3 222 224 0.9 222 0
j15c10b4 221 221 0 221 0

trails [30]. This system works as follows: a moving ant The first and most common algorithm of ACO is the ant
drops some pheromone on the ground in varying quantities, system (AS) algorithm, which was proposed by Dorigo et
related to the quality and quantity of the food source; in this al. [36]. The formula of AS is as follows:
way, the track becomes marked. The following ants can
a
b
detect this substance and they make their choice due to the t ij ðt Þ
hij
Pijk ðt Þ ¼ P ð1Þ
intensity of the pheromone trail. In ACO algorithms, this ½t il ðt Þa
½hil b
natural process is used to solve combinatorial optimization l2Nik
problems. In recent years, so many papers have been
published about ACO algorithms and so many new and where:
robust algorithms have been developed. In the literature, there
t ij(t) The intensity of the pheromone trail on the path
is a number of studies on scheduling problems by ACO. Some
between i and j at time t
of these studies which may be considered as the milestones of
ηij The heuristic value 1/dij (known as visibility), where
ACO literature on scheduling problems include: Stützle and
dij is the physical distance between i and j
Hoos [31] dealing with permutation flow shop scheduling
α The relative importance of the pheromone trail
problems with the objective of minimizing the makespan;
β The relative importance of visibility
Merkle and Middendorf [32] considering the permutation
  k
scheduling problem; Chandrasekharan and Ziegler [33] Q L ðt Þ
considering the problem of scheduling in permutation flow Δt ij ðt Þ ¼
k
ð2Þ
0
shops by using ACO algorithms with the objective of
minimizing the sum of the total flow time of jobs; Shyu where:
et al. [34] considering the no-wait flow shop scheduling Lk(t) The length of the tour found by ant k
problem to minimize the total completion time with ACO; Q A constant
and Ying and Liao [35] considering the permutation flow
The pheromone updating rule [34] is as follows:
shop sequencing problem to minimize the makespan with
ACO. X
n
t ij ¼ ð1  pÞt ij þ Δt kij ð3Þ
k¼1

Table 5 General performances of the two methods

where:
p The evaporation parameter (0<p<1)
Method % solved % difference
n The number of distributed ants and also the number of jobs
Improved AS 0.65 1.771
After consideration, many other algorithms have been
B&B 0.81 4.446
proposed by other researchers. These include the MAX-
546 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550

Table 6 Percentage differences (from lower bounds, LBs) due to the which is used to solve the HFS problems. The improved AS
problem sizes
algorithm is presented in the next section.
Problem type 10×5 10×10 15×5 15×10
3 The improved AS algorithm
Percentage difference 0.406 2.65 2.9375 2.4

3.1 The proposed algorithm

MMIN Ant System (MMAS), Ant Colony System (ACS),
and ASrank. The main difference between these algorithms The improved AS algorithm uses the same formula as AS,
occurs in the pheromone updating mechanism. As seen in described in Sect. 2, but it uses a starting solution that
Eq. 3, in AS, all ants add pheromone, but in MMAS, only affects the probability function and, therefore, the quality of
the best or set a number of ants add pheromone to the trail. the solution. The first phase of the method introduced here
In addition, as seen in Eq. 2, in AS, there is no limit for is the weighting phase. The steps of weighting are as
adding pheromone, but in MMAS, there is a minimum and follows:
a maximum value for pheromone trail addition, which is Step 1 Setting initial conditions:
determined by the problem solver. ACS is the most similar
to AS, but the difference between these two algorithms can topt: the variable that shows the total operation
be seen in pheromone updating. number:
The ACO algorithm has been used to solve different i=from 1 to topt
combinatorial optimization problems in the last 15 years. j=from 1 to topt
The problem types and the ACO studies on that problem
are summarized in Table 1. For each (i, j) operation pairs, calculate the average
As seen in Table 1, ACO has been used in solving flow, of the idle machine waiting times when the pairs
job shop, and single-machine type scheduling problems in are consecutive
the past 10 years. Find the average of the calculated idle waiting
HFS scheduling combines the properties of flow shop times:
and parallel machine scheduling problems. And HFS is i=from 1 to topt
known as NP-hard in the strong sense, even if there is only j=from 1 to topt
one machine on the first stage and two machines on the
second stage [5]. Let ji be the average idle waiting time if operation i
HFS is more complicated and harder than flow shop precedes operation j
problems, and we aimed to investigate the performance of Let ij be the average idle waiting time if operation j
ACO algorithms for a more complex problem than classical precedes operation i
flow shops. For that reason, we solved various types of Assign 0.5*ji+0.5*ij value to (i−j) node:
HFS problems in this paper. To the best of our knowledge, i=from 1 to topt
this is the first attempt to solve the HFS and also the j=from 1 to topt
parallel machine scheduling problems by ACO algorithms
in the literature. In the study, the improved AS algorithm Get a probability value by dividing the value of
was improved by using a different heuristic value (ηij), each (i−j) node by the total value

Fig. 2 Percentage differences 3.50

(from lower bounds, LBs) due
Percentage Difference

3.00
to the problem sizes
2.50
2.00
Problem type
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
10x5 10x10 15x5 15x10

Problem type
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550 547

Table 7 Percentage differences (from LBs) due to the machine layout the pheromone trail (α), the relative importance of visibility
type
(β), and the evaporation parameter (ρ). In order to achieve
Layout type a b c d better results, a parameter optimization study is conducted in
this investigation for the α, β, and ρ parameters. The number
Percentage difference 0.27 0.24 1.93 11.17 of ants and the number of tours are assumed to be 50 and
100, respectively, as in the literature.
The α and β parameters are selected in the interval [1,
10]. Eleven different values are determined from 0 to 10 by
Step 2 Solving the problem: increasing by one at each level. Parameter ρ is selected in
the interval [0, 1] by increasing by 0.1 at each of the levels.
Determine the tour number
The implementation of parameter optimization is full
Determine the ant number
factorial, thus, not all but four of Carlier and Neron’s [2]
Determine the α parameter
HFS problems are considered. These are the j15c5b1,
Determine the β parameter
j15c5d1, j15c5a2, and j15c5c5 problems. The parameter
Determine the ρ parameter
levels are shown in Table 2.
For each ant, determine a random beginning job: For each parameter set, 25 trials were handled, therefore,
For each tour: for each of the problems, a total of 11*11*11*25=33,275
runs were made. The average tours and the shortest tour
For each ant: values were evaluated.
Determine the next node by using Eq. 1 after The best parameter set found after parameter optimiza-
calculating the ηij value from Step 1 tion is shown in Table 3. These parameters were used in the
Determine the probability value solving of all of the test problems.
Carry out the pheromone updating by using Eqs. 2
and 3
5 Solutions to the HFS problems
Stop
The summarized flow chart for the improved ACO In order to evaluate the success of the algorithm on HFS
method is given in Fig. 1. problems, it was been run on 63 different benchmark
problems taken from Carlier and Neron [2]. The problem
sizes vary from 10 jobs×5 stages to 15 jobs×10 stages. The
processing times of the jobs have a uniform distribution in
4 Parameter test on HFS problems the range (3, 20). Three characteristics that define a problem
are the number of jobs, the number of stages, and the number
The operating parameters of AS play an important role in the of identical machines at each stage. For example, the notation
quality of the solution. The parameters of ACO include the of j15c10b1 means a 15-job, 10-stage problem. The letters j
number of ants, number of tours, the relative importance of and c are abbreviations for job and stage, respectively. The

Fig. 3 Percentage differences 12.00

(from LBs) due to the machine
Percentage Differences

layout type 10.00

8.00

6.00 Problem types

4.00

2.00

0.00
a b c d

Machine Layouts
548
letter b defines the structure of the machine layout at the
stages. The last number 1 is the problem index for a specific
type. The meanings of the letters for machine layouts are
given below:
a There is one machine at the middle stage (bottleneck)
and three machines at the other stages
b There is one machine at the first stage (bottleneck) and
three machines at the other stages
c There are two machines at the middle stage (bottleneck)
and three machines at the other stages
d There are three machines at each stage (no bottleneck)
The same problems were also studied by Neron et al. [3].
The solutions found using the improved AS algorithm are
compared to the solutions of the branch and bound (B&B)
method given by Neron et al. [3]. Both of the algorithms
are limited to a run time of 1,600 s. If an optimal solution
was not found within this time, the search was stopped and
the best solution was accepted as the final schedule. The
performance of the algorithm is evaluated according to
Eq. 4, which calculates the percentage difference of the
solutions from the lower bounds. The lower bounds are
found in [3]:
Best Cmax value with improved AS  Lower Bound ðLBÞ
%Difference ¼
Lower Bound ðLBÞ
ð4Þ
In Table 4, the best Cmax values found by our improved
AS algorithm and the B&B methods of Carlier and Neron
[2] are presented. Also, the percentage differences from the
LBs for each of the two methods are shown.
All of the results were calculated using a computer with an
Intel Celeron 1500 microprocessor and 256 MB of RAM.
The program was created using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0.
In all of the solutions, the number of ants and the number of
tours are assumed to be 5 and 2,000, respectively.
The average difference from the LBs, when all of the 63
problems are considered, is calculated as 1.771% for the
improved AS. However, this statistic is calculated as
4.446% for the B&B method. The lower bound values are
achieved for 41 of the problems, while the lower bounds
are achieved for 50 of the problems with B&B. In Table 5,
the percentage of problems (with respect to all 63
problems) which are solved to their LBs (%solved) and
the average percentage differences (%difference) from the
LBs for each method are shown. The percentage differences
(from LBs) due to the problem sizes are given in Table 6
and are represented in Fig. 2.
In Table 7, the values of the percentage differences (from
LBs) due to the machine layout types are given. Figure 3
represents these findings graphically.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 35:541–550
6 Conclusions
In this study, a nature-inspired metaheuristic named ant
colony optimization (ACO) was introduced and a new
method which might be used to improve the performance of
the first ACO algorithm, ant system (AS), was proposed.
Sixty-three different hybrid flow shop (HFS) problems [2]
were solved and satisfactory results were found with the
improved AS method. For all of the problems, a 1.771%
difference from the lower bounds (LBs) was achieved,
which was much better than the performance of the branch
and bound (B&B) method (which was 4.446%). Here, it
was concluded that, due to the limited run time (1,600 s) for
both of the problems, the improved AS converges to the
optimum much faster than the B&B method, but B&B
reached the LB values for 81% of the problems, while the
improved AS did not perform as well (namely, 65%). Carlier
and Neron [2] classified the c and d types of 10 jobs×5
stages to 15 jobs×10 stages problems as hard problems. For
hard problems, the improved AS outperformed the consid-
ered B&B method. Improved AS solved 67% of the hard
problems, while B&B solved only 61% of them.
The inspiration of nature in problem solving seems to be
increasing its impact on researchers in future due to its
encouraging performance and adaptability to other prob-
lems. Better results may be achieved by utilizing hybrid or
parallel applications and also be fine tuning the parameters
of these problem solving methods. The proposed method
may be used in hybrid with other metaheuristics, such as
genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, or tabu search.
Additionally, the results found here may be compared to
other metaheuristics. We have solved the same problems by
using artificial immune systems (AIS) [4]. The results
showed AIS to be more successful than B&B or improved
AS by far.
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Jacques Carlier
and Emmanuel Neron for the benchmark problems, solution files, and
all of their help, and are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for
their helpful comments and suggestions.
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