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Studies in Computational Intelligence 705

Arun Kumar Sangaiah

Ajith Abraham
Patrick Siarry
Michael Sheng Editors

Intelligent Decision
Support Systems
for Sustainable
Computing
Paradigms and Applications
Studies in Computational Intelligence

Volume 705

Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: kacprzyk@ibspan.waw.pl
About this Series

The series “Studies in Computational Intelligence” (SCI) publishes new develop-

ments and advances in the various areas of computational intelligence—quickly and
with a high quality. The intent is to cover the theory, applications, and design
methods of computational intelligence, as embedded in the fields of engineering,
computer science, physics and life sciences, as well as the methodologies behind
them. The series contains monographs, lecture notes and edited volumes in
computational intelligence spanning the areas of neural networks, connectionist
systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary computation, artificial intelligence,
cellular automata, self-organizing systems, soft computing, fuzzy systems, and
hybrid intelligent systems. Of particular value to both the contributors and the
readership are the short publication timeframe and the worldwide distribution,
which enable both wide and rapid dissemination of research output.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7092

Arun Kumar Sangaiah ⋅ Ajith Abraham
Patrick Siarry ⋅ Michael Sheng
Editors

Intelligent Decision Support

Systems for Sustainable
Computing
Paradigms and Applications

123
Editors
Arun Kumar Sangaiah Patrick Siarry
School of Computing Science Faculté des Sciences et Technologie
and Engineering Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne
VIT University Créteil Cedex
Vellore, Tamil Nadu France
India
Michael Sheng
Ajith Abraham Department of Computing
Scientific Network for Innovation Macquarie University
and Research Excellence Sydney, NSW
Machine Intelligence Research Labs Australia
Auburn, WA
USA

ISSN 1860-949X ISSN 1860-9503 (electronic)

Studies in Computational Intelligence
ISBN 978-3-319-53152-6 ISBN 978-3-319-53153-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53153-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017930141

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Foreword

The fast development of Internet technologies has raised the need for sustainable
computing, namely energy-aware management of computing resources to effi-
ciently control and reduce ecological and societal impacts. Most prominently, the
rapid development and the world-wide adoption of cloud computing and data
centers are critical challenges to sustainable computing in the twenty-first century.
The aim is therefore to find trade-offs in the digital ecosystems, which support
computation and data storage at large scale while ensuring eco-friendly computing.
The book “Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Computing”
addresses research and development issues in sustainable computing through a
variety of evolutionary computational paradigms and applications. This book is a
significant collection of 14 chapters covering various computational intelligence
techniques, as well as their applications in sustainable computing that have emerged
in the recent decade. This book provides an excellent platform to review various
areas of intelligence decision support and analytics in depth, and caters for the
needs of researchers and practitioners in the field. The multi-disciplinary nature
of the sustainable computing spanning fields of computer science, optimization, soft
computing, electrical engineering, etc. is sought in the book by a variety of para-
digms, such as neuro-fuzzy, genetic algorithms, and optimization techniques, which
are focused on real-world decision-making analysis, modeling, optimization, and
control problems arising in the area of sustainable computing.
To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to comprehensively use evolutionary
computation and provide an intensive and in-depth coverage of the key subjects in
the fields of evolutionary computational intelligence approaches to sustainable
computing. This book is an invaluable, topical, and timely source of knowledge in
the field, which would serve nicely as a major textbook for several courses at both
undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It can also serve as a key reference for
scientists, professionals, researchers, and academicians, who are interested in new
challenges, theories, practice, and advanced applications of the specific area of
sustainable computing.

v
vi Foreword

I am happy to inform the readers about the interesting findings of intelligent

decision support systems via computational intelligence approaches on sustainable
computing. This book is a main step in this field’s maturation and will serve to
unify, advance, and challenge the scientific community in many important ways.
This book provides a valuable contribution on sustainable computing by covering
the necessary components such as energy efficiency and natural resource preser-
vation and emphasizes the role of ICTs in achieving digital eco-system design and
operation objectives.
I am happy to commend the editors and authors on their accomplishment, and
wish that the readers find the book useful and a source of inspiration in their
research and professional activity.

December 2016 Fatos Xhafa

Professor Titular d’Universitat
Departament de Ciències de la Computació
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Barcelona
Spain
Preface

Sustainable computing has been extended to become a significant research area that
covers the fields of computer science and engineering, electrical engineering, and
other engineering disciplines. Recently, we have been witnessing from adequate
literature of sustainable computing that includes energy efficiency and natural
resource preservation and emphasize the role of ICT (information and communi-
cation technology) in achieving system design and operation objectives. The energy
impact/design of more efficient IT infrastructure is a key challenge for organizations
to realize new computing paradigms.
On the other hand, the uses of computational intelligence (CI) techniques for
intelligent decision support can be exploited to originate effectual computing sys-
tems. CI consists of various branches that are not limited to expert systems (ES),
artificial neural networks (ANN), genetic algorithms (GA) and fuzzy logic (FL),
knowledge-based systems, and various hybrid systems, which are combinations of
two or more of the branches. The intention of this book is to explore sustainability
problems in computing and information processing environments and technologies
at the different levels of CI paradigms. Moreover, this edited volume is to address
the comprehensive nature of sustainability and to emphasize the character of CI in
modeling, identification, optimization, prediction, forecasting, and control of
complex systems.
The chapters included in this book focus on addressing latest research, inno-
vative ideas, challenges, and CI solutions in sustainable computing. Moreover,
these chapters specify novel in-depth fundamental research contributions from a
methodological/application perspective in accomplishing sustainable lifestyle for
society. This book provides a comprehensive overview of constituent paradigms
underlying evolutionary computational intelligence methods, which are illustrating
more attention to sustainability computing problems as they evolve. Hence, the
main objective of the book is to facilitate a forum to a large variety of researchers,
where decision-making approaches under CI paradigms are adapted to demonstrate
how the proposed procedures as well as sustainability computing problems can be
handled in practice.

vii
viii Preface

Need for a Book on the Proposed Topics

Over the recent decades, many of useful methods have been proposed to solve
organizational decision-making problems. Computational Intelligence paradigm in
intelligence decision support systems has fostered a broad research area, and their
significance has also been clearly justified at many applications. This volume
addresses a wide spectrum of CI paradigms, making decisions of an industry or
organization happened at all the levels of sustainable challenges.
This volume aims to provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest
empirical research findings in the area. The CI approaches applied to sustainable
computing decision-making systems usually have received more attention in
recently published volumes. Based on this context, there is need envisioning for a
key perspective into current state of practice of computational intelligence tech-
niques. Consequently, to address the predicative analysis of sustainable computing
problems including energy efficiency and natural resource preservation, load dis-
tribution strategy has been addressed in this book.
Solutions for these problems have been effectively handled through wide range
of algorithmic and computational intelligence frameworks, such as optimization,
machine learning, decision support systems, and meta-heuristics. The main con-
tributions to this volume address sustainability problems in computing and infor-
mation processing environments and technologies, and at various levels of the
computational intelligence process.

Organization of the Book

This volume is organized into 14 chapters. A brief description of each chapter is

given as follows:
Chapter “Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Computing”
gives an overview of computational intelligence paradigms in intelligent decision
support and analytics for sustainable computing.
The editors briefly describe the various sustainability problems in computing and
information processing environments and technologies, and at various levels of the
computational intelligence process. The overall aim of the chapter is to address the
convergence of CI methodologies in sustainable computing.
Chapter “A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static Load Distribution Strategy
for Handling Large-Scale Workloads on Sustainable Computing Systems” covers
an efficient processor availability-aware scheduling model to optimize the energy
efficiency of heterogeneous sustainable computing systems. Using this model, the
authors design a genetic algorithm-based global optimization strategy to derive an
optimal load partition together with an optimal distribution sequence.
Chapter “Efficiency in Energy Decision Support Systems Using Soft Computing
Techniques” presents the problem of energy demand forecasting, and decision
Preface ix

making has been investigated. The authors propose an integrated decision support
system that involves Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Systems (ANFIS), Neural Networks
(NN), and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM), along with Econometric Models (EM) in
a hybrid fashion to predict energy consumption and prices.
Chapter “Computational Intelligence Based Heuristic Approach for Maximizing
Energy Efficiency in Internet of Things” presents computational intelligence-based
heuristic approach for maximizing energy efficiency in the Internet of Things (IoT).
The authors present the Modified Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization
(MMOPSO) algorithm based on the concept of dominance to solve the mobile
cloud task scheduling problem. Overall, this chapter explores IoT and cloud
computing as well as their symbiosis based on the common environment of dis-
tributed processing.
Chapter “Distributed Algorithm with Inherent Intelligence for Multi-cloud
Resource Provisioning” illustrates distributed algorithms with inherent intelligence
for multi-cloud resource provisioning. The authors introduce the substantial ranking
method for elastic and inelastic tasks scheduler to support the heterogeneous
requests and resources in multi-cloud environments.
Chapter “Parameter Optimization methods Based on Computational Intelligence
Techniques in Context of Sustainable Computing” provides a comprehensive study
of parameter optimization. Accuracy of any computational intelligence (CI) algo-
rithm is highly dependent on optimal settings of parameters. The authors have
discussed how parameter setting affects the performance and robustness of evolu-
tionary algorithms.
Chapter “The Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Fuzzy Logic Algorithm
for DC Motor Based Conveyor System” presents to design a conveyor belt system
driven by DC motor whose speed is controlled by solar-powered converter oper-
ating at maximum power point (MPPT). In this chapter, the authors have compared
the proposed MPPT algorithm and fuzzy approach with existing algorithms such as
perturb, observe and incremental conductance.
Chapter “Differential Evolution Based Significant Data Region Identification on
Large Storage Drives” emphasizes on the identification of data relevant sector
regions in digital hard disk drives (HDD) using computationally intelligent differ-
ential evolution (DE) algorithm to accelerate the overall digital forensic (DF) pro-
cess. In this chapter, the authors have presented a new trade-off rectangle to reveal
present requirements toward the development of existing DF facilities. The chapter
also proposes a methodology that extract data storage pattern using storage drive’s
structural information and DE algorithm that can help investigator in planning
further course of action.
Chapter “A Fuzzy Based Power Switching Selection for Residential Application
to Beat Peak Time Power Demand” introduces a fuzzy-based power switching
selection for residential application to beat peak time power demand. The authors
have designed the hybrid system using solar and main power as sources. The fuzzy
logic algorithm has been used to select the power source based on the peak and off
peak time, and utilized power level and availability of power source to meet the
power demand during the peak time and off peak time.
x Preface

Chapter “Energy Saving Using Memorization: A Novel Energy Efficient and

Fault Tolerant Cluster Tree Algorithm for WSN” proposes Energy Saving Using
Memorization (ESUM)—a novel energy-efficient and fault tolerant algorithm for
cluster tree-based routing—that uses energy conservation to enhance network
longevity, by using saved results and avoiding re-elections after each round. The
authors presents a comparison of various cluster tree protocols and proposes a novel
algorithm ESUM that leads to increase in network lifetime by reducing the com-
munication overhead in cluster heads (CH) re-election.
The main objective of this Chapter “Analyzing Slavic Textual Sentiment Using
Deep Convolutional Neural Networks” is to give a clear understanding of the
position of low-resource languages and propose a direction for sustainable devel-
opment of language technologies illustrated using convolutional neural networks
for textual sentiment analysis. The authors have proposed a system which is based
on supervised learning and can be quickly adapted to use simple text, circum-
venting the need for more intricate features.
Chapter “Intelligent Decision Support System for an Integrated Pest
Management in Apple Orchard” presents hybrid case-based reasoning computa-
tional intelligence for pest management in apple production. In agriculture, intel-
ligent decision support systems (IDSSs) have been used for the optimization of a
number of planning and decision-making challenges under variable constraints
based on noisy data. This chapter describes an IDSS to implement and optimize
pest and disease protection decision-making processes within temperate regions of
India; develops hybrid algorithm using case-based reasoning (CBR) and database
technology, and implements the same using Web-based client server architecture.
Chapter “Analysis of Error Propagation in Safety Critical Software Systems: An
Approach Based on UGF” presents a computational intelligence (CI)-based
approach to compute the error inclusion in the output of the selected safety critical
system. The authors address a novel Error Propagation Metric called Safety Metric
SMEP, which can be characterized depending on the performance rate of the soft-
ware module. Through this, the performance distribution of system modules and the
system with respect to safety metric SMEP has been quantified.
Chapter “A Framework for Analyzing Uncertainty in Data Using Computational
Intelligence Techniques” presents the design of an efficient classifier that handles
ambiguity and vagueness in medical datasets for better diagnosis of illness.
Moreover, the chapter authors investigate a rule-based fuzzy-rough classifier for
analyzing uncertainty in medical dataset.

Audience

The intended audience of this book includes scientists, professionals, researchers,

and academicians, who deal with the new challenges and advances in the specific
areas mentioned above. Designers and developers of applications in these fields can
learn from other experts and colleagues through studying this book. Many
Preface xi

universities have started to offer courses on computational intelligence (CI), sus-

tainable computing on the graduate/postgraduate level in information technology
and management disciplines. This book starts with an introduction to sustainable
computing and CI paradigms, hence suitable for university level courses as well as
research scholars. Their insightful discussions and knowledge, based on references
and research work, will lead to an excellent book and a great knowledge source.

Vellore, India Arun Kumar Sangaiah

Auburn, WA, USA Ajith Abraham
Créteil Cedex, France Patrick Siarry
Sydney, Australia Michael Sheng
Acknowledgements

The editors would like to acknowledge the help of all the people involved in this
project and, more specifically, to the authors and reviewers that took part in the
review process. Without their support, this book would not have become a reality.
First, the editors would like to thank each one of the authors for their contri-
butions. Our sincere gratitude goes to the chapter’s authors who contributed their
time and expertise to this book.
Second, the editors wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the
reviewers regarding the improvement of quality, coherence, and content presenta-
tion of chapters. We deeply appreciate the comments of the reviewers who helped
us to refine the context of this book. Most of the authors also served as referees; we
highly appreciate their double task.
Finally, our gratitude goes to all of our friends and colleagues, who were so
generous with their encouragement, advice, and support.

Vellore, India Arun Kumar Sangaiah

Auburn, WA, USA Ajith Abraham
Créteil Cedex, France Patrick Siarry
Sydney, Australia Michael Sheng

xiii
Contents

Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable

Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Arun Kumar Sangaiah, Ajith Abraham, Patrick Siarry
and Michael Sheng
A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static Load Distribution
Strategy for Handling Large-Scale Workloads on Sustainable
Computing Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Xiaoli Wang and Bharadwaj Veeravalli
Efficiency in Energy Decision Support Systems Using Soft
Computing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Konstantinos Kokkinos, Elpiniki Papageorgiou, Vassilios Dafopoulos
and Ioannis Adritsos
Computational Intelligence Based Heuristic Approach
for Maximizing Energy Efficiency in Internet of Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Amandeep Verma, Sakshi Kaushal and Arun Kumar Sangaiah
Distributed Algorithm with Inherent Intelligence for Multi-cloud
Resource Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Seyed Ali Miraftabzadeh, Paul Rad and Mo Jamshidi
Parameter Optimization Methods Based on Computational
Intelligence Techniques in Context of Sustainable Computing . . . . . . . . 101
Pankaj Upadhyay and Jitender Kumar Chhabra
The Maximum Power Point Tracking Using Fuzzy Logic
Algorithm for DC Motor Based Conveyor System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chitra Venugopal and Prabhakar Rontala Subramaniam
Differential Evolution Based Significant Data Region Identification
on Large Storage Drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Nitesh K. Bharadwaj and Upasna Singh

xv
xvi Contents

A Fuzzy Based Power Switching Selection for Residential

Application to Beat Peak Time Power Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Chitra Venugopal, Prabhakar Rontala Subramaniam
and Mathew Habyarimana
Energy Saving Using Memorization: A Novel Energy
Efficient and Fault Tolerant Cluster Tree Algorithm for WSN . . . . . . . . 179
S.S. Jaspal, Umang and Brijesh Kumar
Analyzing Slavic Textual Sentiment Using Deep Convolutional
Neural Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Leo Mršić, Robert Kopal and Goran Klepac
Intelligent Decision Support System for an Integrated Pest
Management in Apple Orchard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
T. Padma, Shabir Ahmad Mir and S.P. Shantharajah
Analysis of Error Propagation in Safety Critical Software Systems:
An Approach Based on UGF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
R. Selvarani and R. Bharathi
A Framework for Analyzing Uncertainty in Data Using
Computational Intelligence Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
M. Sujatha, G. Lavanya Devi and N. Naresh
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Intelligent Decision Support Systems
for Sustainable Computing

Arun Kumar Sangaiah, Ajith Abraham, Patrick Siarry

and Michael Sheng

Abstract In sustainable computing, Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS)

has been adopted for prediction, optimization and decision making challenges
under variable number constraints based on un-structured data. The traditional
systems are lack of efficiency, limited computational ability, inadequate and
impreciseness nature of handling sustainable problems. Despite, Computational
Intelligence (CI) paradigms have used for high computational power of intelligence
system to integrate, analyze and share large volume of un-structured data in a real
time, using diverse analytical techniques to discover sustainable information suit-
able for better decision making. In addition, CI has the ability to handle complex
data using sophisticated mathematical models, analytical techniques. This chapter
provides a brief overview of computational intelligence (CI) paradigms and its
noteworthy character in intelligent decision support and analytics of sustainable
computing problems. The objective of this chapter is to study and analyze the effect
of CI for overall advancement of emerging sustainable computing technologies.

Keywords Sustainable computing ⋅ Computational intelligence ⋅ Intelligent

decision support systems

A.K. Sangaiah (✉)

School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT University, Vellore,
Tamil Nadu, India
e-mail: arunkumarsangaiah@gmail.com
A. Abraham
Machine Intelligence Research Labs, Auburn, USA
P. Siarry
Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne, Créteil, France
M. Sheng
Department of Computing, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

A.K. Sangaiah et al. (eds.), Intelligent Decision Support Systems
for Sustainable Computing, Studies in Computational Intelligence 705,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53153-3_1
2 A.K. Sangaiah et al.

1 Introduction

Sustainable Computing is a standard that encompasses on a wide variety of policies,

procedures, programs, and attitudes that execute the length and breadth and make
use of information technologies. Sustainable Computing has been played a key role
in industries, society, product and services such as sustainable energy, tools, pro-
cess, and supply chains. Subsequently, we might be consider a sustainable com-
puting from the perspective of green computing (maximize the energy efficiency,
recyclability). Sustainable ICTs (Information and Communication Technology) and
management of green computing will leads to significant benefit in energy effi-
ciency. Due to globalization has caused most of the developed countries making an
initiative to step rise in energy consumption. Moreover, sustainable IT green
computing green strategies will have a significant impact and environment benefits
on innovate, create value and build a competitive advantage. Further, the green IT
will gain numerous advantages: (a) reduction of power and energy consumption,
(b) improved resource utilization, (c) better operational efficiency, (d) reduce cost,
fulfil the compliance and regulatory requirements and so on. Consequently, lot of
research has been produced towards the development of energy models via Internet
of Things (IoT), smart sensors, context-aware systems, pervasive, cloud computing
systems, that try to optimize environmental sustainability. Furthermore, only lim-
ited research studies have investigated Computational Intelligence (CI) paradigms
and their applications in building and predicting sustainable energy system. So,
based on this context, this book have addressed the various CI prediction
methodologies for the sustainable computing and analytics has been addressed in
this chapter and this is also the focus of this edited book.

2 Intelligent Decision Support Computational Intelligence

Paradigms

Computational Intelligence and its decision support methodologies have the power
to attain knowledge about a specific task from given data. A system which is called
computationally intelligent if it handles with structured/un-structured data during
the decision making process of any application. This book mainly has designed the
CI paradigms to solve complex real world sustainable computing problems.
Moreover, the intelligent decision support CI paradigms which are extract the
historical data in order to predict the future sustainable problems.
CI methodologies are of various divisions that are not limited to, Neuro com-
puting, evolutionary computing, granular computing and artificial Immune system
and so on. Moreover, CI mainly represents the integration of the following five
methods from the soft computing perspective: Fuzzy Logic, Artificial Neural
Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Computing 3

Networks, Evolutionary Computation, Learning Theory, and Probabilistic Methods.

All these methods in fusion with one another helps the computer to solve a problem
in the following way—(a) Fuzzy logic—understand natural language, (b) Artificial
neural networks—to learn from experiential data by operating similar to the
biological one, (c) Evolutionary computing—process of selection, (d) Learning
theory—reasoning, and (e) Probabilistic methods—dealing with uncertainty
imprecision.
Besides these main principles, there are some other approaches which include
genetic algorithms, biologically inspired algorithms such as swarm intelligence and
artificial immune systems. Recently there is an interest to fuse computational
intelligence approaches with data mining, natural language processing, and artificial
intelligence techniques. The detailed overview CI approaches on sustainable
applications has been depicted in Fig. 1.
In sustainable computing techniques, we always require to solve several of
optimization problems like design, planning and control, which are really hard.
Traditional mathematical optimization techniques are limited capacity and com-
putationally difficult. Recent advances in computational intelligence paradigms
have resulted in an in-creasing number of optimization techniques such as
(a) Nature-inspired computational approaches: ant colony optimization, bee algo-
rithm, firefly optimization, bacterial foraging optimization, artificial immune system
and etc. (b) evolutionary computational approaches: Genetic algorithms, particle
swarm optimization etc. (c) logical search algorithms: tabu search, harmony search,
cross entropy method and so on for effectively solve these complex problems.
Basically, the algorithms which are depends on the principle of natural biological
evolution and/or collective behaviour of swarm have addressed a promising per-
formance that has been reported many literature studies. Similarly, the earlier
studies [1–3] have used computational intelligence techniques for parameter opti-
mization (parameter tuning and parameter control) for computational sustainability
issues. Subsequently, the earlier researchers [4, 5] have compared the recent CI
paradigms for parameter optimization on various performance indicators.

Human Perception Soft Computing Computational Sustainable Applications

Intelligence

Reasoning Fuzzy Logic Intelligence System Energy Efficiency

Hybrid Intelligence
Systems

Learning Neural Network Context-aware Supply Chain

Systems Management
Human-centric
Systems
Optimizing Evolutionary Algorithms Threat Intelligence

Fig. 1 Integration of CI paradigms on sustainable computing applications

4 A.K. Sangaiah et al.

3 CI Paradigms for Sustainable Applications

Computational Intelligence (CI) is the division of science and engineering where

complex computational problems that are handled by modelling problems
according to the natural and evolutionary intelligence, resulting in “intelligent
systems”. These intelligent systems comprises numbers of popular intelligent
algorithms; artificial neural networks, artificial immune systems, evolutionary
computation, fuzzy system and swarm intelligence. Consequently, these intelligent
algorithms are being a part of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Alternatively, it is stated
that Computational Intelligence (CI) is the successor of Artificial Intelligence (AI),
where CI is analysis and study of adaptive mechanism to facilitate intelligent
responses and is considered the sustainable computing and its applications.
Recently, computational intelligence has emerged as a powerful methodology for
revealing sustainable real-world challenging problems. The earlier study [6] have
investigated the significance of CI, specifically neural networks in handling com-
plexity and stochastic challenges with respect to smart grid system for addressing
the new requirements of a sustainable global energy system.
Recently, there is an interest by researchers and practitioners have adopted CI
paradigms for sustainable supply chain management. The previous studies [7, 8]
have addressed the advances and applications of computational intelligence for
sustainable supply chain planning in the context environmental sustainability (green
design, green procurement, green production, green logistics, green packaging,
green recycling). Subsequently, there are limited studies have focused on the supply
chain management issue for supplier evaluation. Moreover, the studies have mostly
focused on fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approaches such as
Analytical Hierarchy Process, Analytical Network Process, DEMATEL, rough set
theory for supplier evaluation. Further, these models have limited capacity (less
robust) because computation in order quantity a specific supplier is not possible. To
overcome such limitation hybrid fuzzy hybrid multi-criteria approaches has been
investigated in the recent studies [9–11]. Still there are lots of research gaps needs
to be addressed in the view meta-heuristic approaches for environmental sustain-
ability. CI paradigms are used to find out the optimum solution of the problem.
Moreover, subjective vagueness and imprecision can be effectively handled via CI
approaches as a decision making tools for preventing the environmental challenges.

4 Importance of CI in Sustainable Computing Research

Intelligent decision support systems and sustainability will elaborate on CI para-

digms deployment in many application areas of sustainability as well as the key
challenges and opportunities that sustainability issues bring to CI research, edu-
cation, and practice. This book has been focused upon the main themes at the
intersection of CI and sustainability, but it will primarily concentrate on the larger
Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Computing 5

contexts of sustainability, and on computing and sustainability, thereby setting the

stage for extendable research needs to be carried out. The earlier study [12] has
defined the sustainability as “Sustainable development is development that meets
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.” Since there will be wide space for researchers large number
sustainability challenges relating to energy, climate change, agriculture, trans-
portation, disease, garbage and so on needs to be predict in advance in sustainable
management. Similarity, CI paradigms and optimization algorithms have paved the
way for effective design, and implementation of sustainable engineering applica-
tions. Typically, sustainable problems and challenges hard to handle with tradi-
tional approaches, to overcome such limitations, CI paradigms have take over a
prominent role in planning, optimizing and forecasting sustainable systems. Typi-
cally, these methodologies would use of domain knowledge in order to obtain the
required objectives. Hence, in the case that explicit domain knowledge is not
presented, CI approaches could handle effectively with large raw numerical sensory
data directly, process them, generate reliable and just-in-time responses, and have
high fault tolerance.
The CI paradigms applied to sustainable computing and intelligent decision
support systems have been paid more attention recently. Further, fusion of CI
approaches such as neuro fuzzy approaches, artificial neural networks, evolutionary
computation, swarm intelligence, rough sets can be incorporated to handle uncer-
tainty and subjectivity in decision making process. However, the hybridization of
CI techniques and optimization techniques has not been adequately investigated
from the perspective of sustainable computing and analytics. Hence, there is an
opportunity to address the emerging trends and advancement in sustainable appli-
cation and process to by harnessing the power of computational intelligence.
Future CI based applications would focus more on real-world problems that need a
paradigm shift of paying attention to improving computational efficiency, under-
studying theoretical foundations and frameworks, and most essentially, supporting
real decision-making in complex, uncertain application contexts. Taking ideas from
CI which relate to sustainable computing and analytics to bringing into computa-
tional models would be helpful to researchers in this field to develop novel
approaches and establish new research avenues to pursue.

5 Conclusion

In this chapter, the problem and challenges of sustainable computing in forecasting

and decision making has been illustrated. The generic logic framework of the IDSS
is highlighted, to outline the key functionalities of the CI on forecasting and the
model repository as an open-ended subsystem including all relevant components for
prediction. The research on development and application of CI paradigms and other
meta-heuristic approaches can provide effective solutions for optimization prob-
lems, specifically, dealing with incomplete or inconsistent information and limited
6 A.K. Sangaiah et al.

computational capability in handling sustainable problems. CI paradigms with

relate to sustainable computing intelligent decision support and analytics bringing
them into computational models can help researchers in this field to develop novel
approaches and establish new research avenues to pursue.

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opportunities. IEEE Comput. Intell. Mag. 6(3), 14–21 (2011)
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J. Clean. Prod. 40, 32–39 (2013)
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multi-objective linear programming for developing low carbon supply chain. Expert Syst.
Appl. 39(9), 8182–8192 (2012)
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case study in the Indian automotive industry. Neural Comput. Appl. (2016). doi:10.1007/
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10. O.W. Samuel, G.M. Asogbon, A.K. Sangaiah, P. Fang, G. Li, An integrated decision support
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A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static
Load Distribution Strategy for Handling
Large-Scale Workloads on Sustainable
Computing Systems

Xiaoli Wang and Bharadwaj Veeravalli

Abstract A key challenge faced by large-scale computing platforms to go green

is the effective utilization of energy at the various processing nodes. Most existing
scheduling models assume that processors are able to stay online forever. In reality,
processors, however, may have arbitrary unavailable time periods. Hence, if we inad-
vertently assign tasks to processors without considering the availability constraints,
some processors would not be able to finish their assigned workloads. Thus all the
unfinished workloads need to be reassigned to other available processors resulting in
an inefficient time and energy schedule. In this chapter, we propose a novel proces-
sor availability-aware divisible-load scheduling model. Using this model, we design
a time-efficient genetic algorithm based global optimization technique to derive an
optimal load distribution strategy. Our experimental results show that the proposed
algorithm adapts to minimize the processing time, hence the energy consumption
too, by over 60% compared to other strategies.

Keywords Divisible load ⋅ Release time ⋅ Off-line time ⋅ Load distribution ⋅

Processor availability

1 Introduction

Modern large-scale computing platforms, such as networked computing systems and

cloud computing, have imminent need to go green since they are severely constrained
by energy related issues [1]. This is predominantly due to their heavy utilization of
power and cooling resources which results in rapid energy consumption which in turn

X. Wang
School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
e-mail: wangxiaoli@mail.xidian.edu.cn
B. Veeravalli (✉)
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore,
Singapore 117576, Singapore
e-mail: elebv@nus.edu.sg

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 7

A.K. Sangaiah et al. (eds.), Intelligent Decision Support Systems
for Sustainable Computing, Studies in Computational Intelligence 705,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53153-3_2
8 X. Wang and B. Veeravalli

imparts large carbon footprints on the environment [2]. Emerging sustainable com-
puting technologies, which primarily aim at reducing massive energy consumption
by developing certain ab initio computational and mathematical models, methods,
and tools for resource allocation and task scheduling, are therefore gain significant
interest to researchers and practitioners.
One of the key techniques to save energy is Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS).
It exploits the hardware characteristics to save energy by degrading CPU voltage
and operating frequency while keeping the processor to operate at a slow speed [3].
During the past decades, substantial energy-efficient scheduling strategies have been
proposed for DVS-enabled systems [4–7]. These DVS-based techniques, however,
may not applicable to virtualized environments where physical processors are shared
by multiple virtual machines (VMs) as lowering the supply voltage will inadver-
tently affect the performance of VMs belonging to different applications [8]. Another
promising approach to conserve energy is turning off idle computing nodes in a data
center by packing the running VMs to as few physical servers as possible, often
called VM consolidation [9]. However, live VM migration must be guaranteed and
resources must be properly allocated in order to avoid severe performance degrada-
tion due to resource competition by co-located VMs. There are a large amount of
studies on the migration strategies, concerning the issues of where, when, and how
a VM should be migrated [10–13]. At the current stage, several management issues
about VM consolidation still deserve additional investigations. For example, trans-
ferring large-sized data over the shared network link is a huge challenge, especially
when several goals in terms of Service-Level Agreement (SLA) violation avoid-
ance, minimum communication delay, high system throughput, and high quality of
services have to meet [14].
While significant advancements have been made to minimize the energy con-
sumption for sustainable computing, even stronger effort is needed to promote the
effective utilization of energy at the various processing nodes. By “effective uti-
lization” we mean that efforts need to be devoted to making compute platforms not
just minimizing the energy consumption but also to make every amount of energy
consumed for workload computation worthwhile. This is based on the fact that the
actual energy consumed for workload computation might not be equal to the energy
that is required for workload computation. For example, most existing scheduling
models assume that the compute units, which are processors, are able to stay online
and available forever. That is to say, it assumes that all processors remain idle at
the beginning of the workload assignment and that they will be kept busy until the
assigned workload fractions are completed. In reality, processors, however, may have
arbitrary unavailable time periods. They may still be busy computing any previous
workload even when a new workload arrives and may even get off-line before fin-
ish computing the currently assigned load. The time period between release time
and off-line time of a processor is referred to as its available time period. Hence, if
we inadvertently assign tasks to processors according to their computational capa-
bilities without taking into account of the availability constraints, some processors
would not be able to finish their assigned workloads. Thus all of the unfinished work-
loads need to be reassigned to other available processors resulting in an inefficient
A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static Load Distribution . . . 9

time and energy schedule. Therefore, designing an efficient load distribution strategy
seems appropriate when one considers resource (processor) available times.
It is believed that workloads to be scheduled on Heterogenous Sustainable Com-
puting Systems (HSCS) are quite large in size and possess computationally intensive
CPU requirements; otherwise, one or a few processors should be enough for work-
load computation. Also, workloads should be partitionable so that they can simply
be further divided into a number of load fractions and distributed to processors for
independently parallel computing. Ideally, if a workload can be divided into an arbi-
trary number of load fractions such that there are no precedence relationships among
these fractions, then we refer to it as a divisible load [15]. Actually, divisible loads
exist in widely multiple real-world applications, such as real-time video encoding
[16, 17], satellite image classification [18], signature searching in a networked col-
lection of files [19], and so on. It may be noted that divisible load modelling can also
be adopted for modern day Big Data processing when the requirements of processing
demand homogeneous processing on the data.
There are considerable studies available on finding an optimal load distribution
strategy for scheduling large-scale divisible loads on various distributed networks
with different topologies, including linear networks [20], bus networks [21], tree
networks [22], Gaussian, mesh, torus networks [23], and complete b-Ary tree net-
works [24]. Generally, a load distribution strategy involves two main issues—one in
deriving optimal sizes of the workloads to the processors, referred to as an optimal
load partition (OLP), and the other is to determine a viable sequence of distribution
that achieves minimum processing time, referred to as an optimal load distribution
sequence (OLDS).
As for the first issue, in order to obtain a minimized processing time, it is nec-
essary and sufficient to require that all processors stop computing at the same time
instant; otherwise, the processing time of the entire workload could be reduced by
transferring some load fractions from busy to idle processors. This widely accepted
principle in Divisible-Load Theory (DLT) is referred to as the optimality principle,
which provides a key to derive a closed-form solution for OLP [25]. However, as
mentioned earlier, processors may have arbitrary unavailable time periods in real-
ity. Hence, we could not inadvertently assign tasks to processors according to the
optimality principle as usual; otherwise, workload rescheduling would result in an
inefficient time and energy schedule. Therefore, searching for an OLP is necessary
for sustainable computing where processor available time periods are involved.
As for the second issue, sufficient evidence has shown that load distribution
sequences play a significant role in computational performance. For heterogeneous
single-level tree networks, it has been proven that only when the load distribution
sequence follows the decreasing order of communication speeds does the processing
time reach the minimum [26]. As regard to heterogeneous multi-level tree networks,
the OLDS depends only on communication speeds of links but not on computation
speeds of processors [27]. Nonetheless, the above studies did not consider start-up
overheads for both communication and computation into consideration. For the case
of homogenous bus networks with start-up overheads, it was shown that the process-
ing time is minimized when the load distribution sequence follows the order in which
10 X. Wang and B. Veeravalli

the computation speeds of processors decrease [28]. For a large enough workload
on heterogeneous single-level tree networks with arbitrary start-up overheads, the
sequence of load distribution should follow the decreasing order of the communi-
cation speeds in order to achieve minimum processing time [29], but how large a
workload should be to consider it as a large enough workload. Moreover, when we
consider processor available time periods, does the above conclusion still hold? If
not, what sequence does the load distribution should follow to achieve a minimum
processing time?
As regard to processor release times alone, several load distribution strategies
were proposed for bus networks [30], linear daisy chain networks [31], and single-
level tree networks [32], but they did not take start-up overheads and the influence of
load distribution sequence into consideration. In order to obtain an OLP and OLDS
simultaneously on single-level tree networks with arbitrary processor release times,
a bi-level genetic algorithm was proposed in [33]. The proposed algorithm comprises
two layers of nested genetic algorithms, with the upper genetic algorithm applied for
searching an OLDS and the lower algorithm utilized for finding an OLP. However,
as the number of processors increases, the proposed bi-level genetic algorithm gets
hard to converge. In order to obtain an accurate OLP, an exhaustive search algorithm
was proposed in [34] for release-time aware divisible-load scheduling on bus net-
works, but it did not consider processor off-line times and the influence of OLDS on
processing time.
In this chapter, both processor release times and off-line times are explicitly con-
sidered in our model, which brings the work more closer to reality. This schedul-
ing problem at hand is complex owing to an inherent nature of the computing plat-
form which could possibly comprise heterogeneous processors. We propose a novel
Processor Availability-Aware Genetic Algorithm (PAA-GA) based global optimiza-
tion strategy to minimize the processing time of the entire workload, thus reducing
the total energy consumption too, on HSCS.
The remaining of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 firstly gives a
mathematical description of the divisible-load scheduling problem on HSCS with
arbitrary start-up overheads and processor available time periods, followed by the
proposed availability-aware scheduling model. With this model, we accordingly
design algorithm PAA-GA in Sect. 3, which will be evaluated through experiments
in Sect. 4. In the last section, conclusions are obtainable.

2 Availability-Aware Scheduling Model

2.1 Problem Description

An HSCS is considered in this chapter with its topology given in Fig. 1. It com-
prises N + 1 Heterogeneous processors {P0 , P1 , … , PN } connected through com-
munication links {L1 , L2 , ⋯ , LN }, where P0 signifies the master, while the others
A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static Load Distribution . . . 11

Fig. 1 An HSCS with

N + 1 heterogeneous
processors connected in a
single-level tree topology

denote worker processors. P0 does not participate in computation itself but merely
takes the responsibility of assigning loads to worker processors. P0 firstly divides
the entire workload Wtotal into N fractions A ⃗ = (𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , … , 𝛼N ) with 0 ≤ ai ≤ Wtotal
∑N
and i=1 𝛼i = Wtotal . Then the load fractions are assigned to worker processors in
a certain distribution order (P𝜎1 , P𝜎2 , … , P𝜎N ), where 𝜎⃗ = (𝜎1 , 𝜎2 , … , 𝜎N ) is proces-
sor index which is a permutation of (1, 2, … , N) and 𝛼i is assigned to processor P𝜎i
with i = 1, 2, … , N. P0 sends load fraction to only one processor at a time and each
worker starts computing after its entire load fraction has been received completely.
Workers cannot communicate and compute simultaneously.
It is necessary to note that, not all worker processors have necessity to participate
in workload computation. Suppose that only the first n processors P𝜎1 , P𝜎2 , … , P𝜎n
in the distribution sequence are needed for workload computation, so they will be
assigned with non-zero load fractions, that is, 𝛼i > 0 with i = 1, … , n, while the
remaining processors are not assigned with any load fractions, that is, for i = n +
1, … , N, 𝛼i = 0.
We consider a heterogeneous system wherein we have, for ∀i ≠ j, wi ≠ wj and
gi ≠ gj . Also, it is assumed that communication speeds are much faster than compu-
tation speeds; otherwise, only one or two processors should be enough to involve in
the workload computation [35]. As P0 assigns 𝛼i to the i-th processor P𝜎i in the load
distribution sequence, the communication and computation components are mod-
elled as affine functions, given by e𝜎i + g𝜎i 𝛼i and f𝜎i + w𝜎i 𝛼i , including communica-
tion and computation start-up overheads e𝜎i and f𝜎i associated with processor P𝜎i and
link L𝜎i , respectively.
Some processors in our system may be engaged in any of the previous workload
computation when a new load arrives, say at time t = 0, so they cannot participate for
the newly arrived workload computation until their release times. Meanwhile, they
have to finish computing their assigned load fractions before they arrive at their off-
line times. It is assumed that processors can estimate their release times by the size of
the current workload to process, and the master knows the release and off-line times
of all processors. Even though the master does not know the accurate processor off-
line times, there exist some prediction techniques to estimate an approximate off-line
time for each processor based on a history of processor usage (for more information,
please refer to [36–38]). Let ri and oi be the release time and off-line time of processor
Pi respectively, where i = 1, 2, … , N.
12 X. Wang and B. Veeravalli

Fig. 2 Gantt chart for load scheduling on HSCS with processor available times

Figure 2 shows a possible Gantt Chart for load scheduling on HSCS with proces-
sor release times and off-line times. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the first processor P𝜎1
starts to receive load fraction 𝛼1 from master P0 when it gets released at time
t = r𝜎1 . Let si be the start time of processor P𝜎i , at which P𝜎i starts to receive
load fraction 𝛼i from P0 . Thus s1 = r𝜎1 . Except for P𝜎1 , the start time si of proces-
sor P𝜎i depends not only on its release time r𝜎i , but also on the start time si−1 of
processor P𝜎i−1 and the communication time (e𝜎i−1 + g𝜎i−1 𝛼i−1 ) taken by processor
P𝜎i−1 to receive its load fraction 𝛼i−1 from P0 . By observing Fig. 2, we obtain that
{ }
si = max r𝜎i , si−1 + e𝜎i−1 + g𝜎i−1 𝛼i−1 , where i = 2, 3, … , n.
According to the optimality principle of DLT, if processor off-line times are
ignored, all processors should finish computing at the same time to obtain a min-
imized processing time, say at time t = T ⋆ . Once we consider off-line times, proces-
sors whose off-line times are smaller than T ⋆ will not be able to finish their assigned
load fractions. Hence, lest these load fractions be rescheduled and result in a waste
of energy consumption, processors should be assigned with appropriate workload
sizes according to their available time periods in the first place. ( )
The processing time Ti of processor P𝜎i is given by si + e𝜎i + f𝜎i + g𝜎i + w𝜎i 𝛼i ,
where i = 1, 2, … , n. It can be observed from the formulation that Ti depends directly
on two parts: the former part si indicating when processor P𝜎i starts to receive load
( ( ) )
from P0 , and the latter part e𝜎i + f𝜎i + g𝜎i + w𝜎i 𝛼i representing how long it takes
for processor P𝜎i to finish computing its assigned load fraction. Both parts are deter-
mined directly by load partition A ⃗ = {𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , … , 𝛼N } and load distribution sequence
( )
P𝜎1 , P𝜎2 , … , P𝜎N . Hence, Ti is actually a function of 𝜎⃗ and A.⃗ As the processing
time T of the entire workload lies upon the processor which stops computing the last,
A Genetic Algorithm Based Efficient Static Load Distribution . . . 13

⃗ as follows.
T can be derived as a function of 𝜎⃗ and A
{ ( ) }
⃗ = max Ti = max si + e𝜎 + f𝜎 + g𝜎 + w𝜎 𝛼i .
𝜎 , A)
T(⃗
1≤i≤n i 1≤i≤n
i i i

The objective of divisible-load scheduling on HSCS is to minimize the processing

time T of the entire workload by taking into account processor available time periods,
so that every amount of energy is consumed for useful workload computation without
wasting, thus reducing the total energy consumption to the utmost. To achieve this
goal, one has to determine an optimal load distribution strategy, including an OLDS
and OLP. A feasible load distribution strategy should subject to the following four
constraints:
(1) Workload Constraint: Each load fraction should be non-negative and not larger
than the entire workload, the sum of which is equal to the entire workload. That
∑N
is to say, 0 ≤ 𝛼i ≤ Wtotal with i = 1, … , N, and i=1 𝛼i = Wtotal .
(2) Processor Constraint: A load distribution sequence should contain exactly
one instance of a processor, without
( any omission
) or duplication of a proces-
sor or processors. That is, 𝜎⃗ = 𝜎1 , 𝜎2 , … , 𝜎N , where 𝜎i ∈ {1, 2, … , N} with
i = 1, 2, … , N; for ∀j, k ∈ {1, 2, … , N}, if j ≠ k, then 𝜎j ≠ 𝜎k .
(3) Participant Constraint: Not all processors are needed for workload compu-
tation. Assuming that only the first n (n ≤ N) processors in the distribution
sequence are required, we have 𝛼i > 0 with i = 1, 2, … , n, while 𝛼i = 0 when
i = n + 1, … , N.
(4) Off-Line Time Constraint: Processors involved in workload computation
should stop computing before their off-line time come. That is, Ti = si + e𝜎i +
(g𝜎i + w𝜎i )𝛼i + f𝜎i ≤ o𝜎i with i = 1, … , n.

2.2 A Novel Scheduling Model for Sustainable Computing

Table 1 briefly summarizes related notations and corresponding definitions. In order

to solve the scheduling problem mentioned in the previous section, we build a novel
processor availability-aware divisible-load scheduling model as follows:
{ }
{ ( ) }
𝜎 , A)
min T(⃗ ⃗ = min max si + e𝜎i + f𝜎i + g𝜎i + w𝜎i 𝛼i .
⃗
𝜎⃗ , A ⃗
𝜎⃗ , A 1≤i≤n

s.t.
∑N
(1) i=1 𝛼i = Wtotal , 0 ≤ 𝛼i ≤ Wtotal , i = 1, … , N.
( )
(2) 𝜎⃗ = 𝜎1 , 𝜎2 , … , 𝜎N , where 𝜎i ∈ {1, 2, … , N} and i = 1, 2, … , N. ∀j, k ∈ {1, 2,
… , N}, if j ≠ k, then 𝜎j ≠ 𝜎k .
(3) n ≤ N; ∀i (∈ {1, 2, …) , n}, 𝛼i > 0, while ∀i ∈ {n + 1, … , N}, 𝛼i = 0.
(4) si + e𝜎i + g𝜎i + w𝜎i 𝛼i + f𝜎i ≤ o𝜎i , i = 1, … , n.
14 X. Wang and B. Veeravalli

Table 1 Notations and definitions

Notations Definitions
Wtotal Total size of the entire workload
N Total number of worker processors
n Number of processors required for workload computation
ei Communication start-up overhead of link Li
fi Computation start-up overhead of processor Pi
gi Ratio of time taken by link Li to communicate a given workload to that by a
standard link
wi Ratio of time taken by processor Pi to compute a given workload to that by a
standard processor
𝜎⃗ Processor index used for representing load distribution sequences.
𝜎⃗ = (𝜎1 , 𝜎2 , … , 𝜎N ) is a permutation of (1, 2, … , N)
ri Release time of processor Pi
oi Off-line time of processor Pi
si Start time of the i-th processor P𝜎i in the distribution sequence
⃗
A Load partition scheme. A ⃗ = {𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , … , 𝛼N } with each element 𝛼i representing the
size of load fraction assigned to the i-th processor P𝜎i in the distribution sequence
T Processing time of the entire workload
Ti Processing time of the i-th processor P𝜎i in the distribution sequence

where
(5) n = card({𝛼i | 𝛼i ∈ A⃗ and 𝛼i > 0}), where card(X) denotes the number of ele-
ments{in set X.
r1 , i = 1;
(6) si =
max{r𝜎i , si−1 + e𝜎i−1 + g𝜎i−1 𝛼i−1 }, i = 2, 3, … , n.

3 Algorithm PAA-GA Based Global Optimization Strategy

⃗
) two sets of variables are involved: A = {𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , … , 𝛼N } and
In the( proposed model,
𝜎⃗ = 𝜎1 , 𝜎2 , … , 𝜎N . Therefore, the solution of the proposed model is a mix of real
numbers and integer numbers. The problem of deriving an OLDS is similar to Trav-
elling Salesman Problem (TSP) which asks the following question: Given a list of
cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route
that visits each city exactly once and returns to the origin city? It is well acknowl-
edged that TSP is an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization. Therefore, as
an even more complex problem with two sets of variables A ⃗ and 𝜎⃗ optimized simul-
taneously, the problem considered in this chapter is definitely an NP-hard problem.
When N turns out to be large, it is hard to obtain a global optimal solution (A, ⃗ 𝜎⃗ ).
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 Bartlett—[Gruffly.] I’ve naught to forget—leastways naught that’s in
your mind. But they’s things about the stubborn will o’ woman I’d like to
forget. [They look at each other across the table. There is a pause. Finally
he cannot stand her accusing glance. He looks away, gets to his feet, walks
about, then sits down again, his face set determinedly—with a grim smile.]
Well, here we be, Sarah—alone together for the first time since—
Mrs. Bartlett—[Quickly.] Since that night, Isaiah.
Bartlett—[As if he hadn’t heard.] Since I come back to you, almost.
Did ye ever stop to think o’ how strange it be we’d ever come to this? I
never dreamed a day’d come when ye’d force me to sleep away from ye,
alone in a shed like a mangy dog!
Mrs. Bartlett—[Gently.] I didn’t drive you away, Isaiah. You came o’
your own will.
Bartlett—Because o’ your naggin’ tongue, woman—and the wrong ye
thought o’ me.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Shaking her head, slowly.]
It wasn’t me you ran from, Isaiah. You ran away from your own self—
the conscience God put in you that you think you can fool with lies.
Bartlett—[Starting to his feet—angrily.] Lies?
Mrs. Bartlett—It’s the truth, Isaiah, only you be too weak to face it.
Bartlett—[With defiant bravado.] Ye’ll find I be strong enough to face
anything, true or lie! [Then protestingly.] What call have ye to think evil o’
me, Sarah? It’s mad o’ ye to hold me to account for things I said in my
sleep—for the damned nightmares that set me talkin’ wild when I’d just
come home and my head was still cracked with the thirst and the sun I’d
borne on that island. Is that right, woman, to be blamin’ me for mad
dreams?
Mrs. Bartlett—You confessed the rest of what you said was true—of
the gold you’d found and buried there.
Bartlett—[With a sudden fierce exultation.] Aye—that be true as
Bible, Sarah. When I’ve sailed back in the schooner, ye’ll see for yourself.
There be a big chest o’ it, yellow and heavy, and fixed up with diamonds,
emeralds and sech, that be worth more, even, nor the gold. We’ll be rich,
Sarah—rich like I’ve always dreamed we’d be! There’ll be silks and
carriages for ye—all the woman’s truck in the world ye’ve a mind to want
—and all that Nat and Sue’ll want, too.
Mrs. Bartlett—[With a shudder.] Are you tryin’ to bribe me, Isaiah—
with a treasure that’s been cursed by God?
Bartlett—[As if he hadn’t heard.] D’ye remember long ago, back East,
just after we was married, and I was skipper o’ my first whalin’ ship, how
that foreigner come to me with the map o’ the pirates’ gold and asked me to
charter the ship? D’ye remember o’ how I’d talk to ye o’ findin’ ambergris,
a pile o’ it on one vige that’d make us rich? Ye used to take interest then,
and all th’ voyage with me ye’d be hopin’ I’d find it, too.
Mrs. Bartlett—That was my sin o’ greed that I’m bein’ punished for
now.
Bartlett—[Again as if he hadn’t heard.] And now when it’s come to us
at last—bigger nor I ever dreamed on—ye drive me away from ye and say
it’s cursed.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Inexorably.] Cursed with the blood o’ the man and
boy ye murdered!
Bartlett—[In a mad rage.] Ye lie, woman! I spoke no word!
Mrs. Bartlett—That’s what you kept repeatin’ in your sleep, night
after night that first week you was home, till I knew the truth, and could
bear no more. “I spoke no word!” you kept sayin’, as if ’twas your own soul
had you at the bar of judgment. And “That cook, he didn’t believe ’twas
gold,” you’d say, and curse him.
Bartlett—[Wildly.] He was lyin’, the thief! Lyin’ so’s he and the boy
could steal th’ gold. I made him own up he was lyin’. What if it’s all true,
what ye heard? Hadn’t we the right to do away with two thieves? And we
was all mad with thirst and sun. Can ye hold madmen to account for the
things they do?
Mrs. Bartlett—You wasn’t so crazed but you remember.
Bartlett—I remember I spoke no word, Sarah—as God’s my judge!
Mrs. Bartlett—But you could have prevented it with a word, couldn’t
you, Isaiah? That heathen savage lives in the fear of you. He’d not have
done it if——
Bartlett—[Gloomily.] That’s woman’s talk. There be three o’ us can
swear in any court I spoke no word.
 Mrs. Bartlett—What are courts? Can you swear it to yourself? You
can’t, and it’s that’s drivin’ you mad, Isaiah. Oh, I’d never have believed it
of you for all you said in sleep, if it wasn’t for the way you looked and
acted out of sleep. I watched you that first week, Isaiah, till the fear of it had
me down sick. I had to watch you, you was so strange and fearful to me. At
first I kept sayin’, ’twas only you wasn’t rid o’ the thirst and the sun yet.
But then, all to once, God gave me sight, and I saw ’twas guilt written on
your face, on the queer stricken way you acted, and guilt in your eyes. [She
stares into them.] I see it now, as I always see it when you look at me. [She
covers her face with her hands with a sob.]
Bartlett—[His face haggard and drawn—hopelessly, as if he were too
beaten to oppose her further—in a hoarse whisper.] What would ye have
me do, Sarah?
Mrs. Bartlett—[Taking her hands from her face—her eyes lighting up
with religious fervor.] Confess your sin, Isaiah! Confess to God and men,
and make your peace and take your punishment. Forget that gold that’s
cursed and the voyage you be settin’ out on, and make your peace.
[Passionately.] I ask you to do this for my sake and the children’s, and your
own most of all! I’ll get down on my knees, Isaiah, and pray you to do it, as
I’ve prayed to God to send you his grace! Confess and wash your soul of
the stain o’ blood that’s on it. I ask you that, Isaiah—and God asks you—to
make your peace with Him.
Bartlett—[His face tortured by the inward struggle—as if the word
strangled him.] Confess and let someone steal the gold! [This thought
destroys her influence over him in a second. His obsession regains
possession of him instantly, filling him with rebellious strength. He laughs
harshly.] Ye’d make an old woman o’ me, would ye, Sarah?—an old,
Sunday go-to-meetin’ woman snivvelin’ and prayin’ to God for pardon!
Pardon for what? Because two sneakin’ thieves are dead and done for? I
spoke no word, I tell ye—but if I had, I’d not repent it. What I’ve done I’ve
done, and I’ve never asked pardon o’ God or men for ought I’ve done, and
never will. Confess, and give up the gold I’ve dreamed of all my life that
I’ve found at last! By thunder, ye must think I’m crazed!
Mrs. Bartlett—[Seeming to shrivel up on her chair as she sees she has
lost—weakly.] You be lost, Isaiah—no one can stop you.
 Bartlett—[Triumphantly.] Aye, none’ll stop me. I’ll go my course
alone. I’m glad ye see that, Sarah.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Feebly trying to get to her feet.] I’ll go to home.
Bartlett—Ye’ll stay, Sarah. Ye’ve had your say, and I’ve listened to
ye; now I’ll have mine and ye listen to me. [Mrs. Bartlett sinks back in
her chair exhaustedly. Bartlett continues slowly.] The schooner sails at
dawn on the full tide. I ask ye again and for the last time, will ye christen
her with your name afore she sails?
Mrs. Bartlett—[Firmly.] No.
Bartlett—[Menacingly.] Take heed, Sarah, o’ what ye’re sayin’! I’m
your husband ye’ve sworn to obey. By right I kin order ye, not ask.
Mrs. Bartlett—I’ve never refused in anything that’s right—but this be
wicked wrong.
Bartlett—It’s only your stubborn woman’s spite makes ye refuse.
Ye’ve christened every ship I’ve ever been skipper on, and it’s brought me
luck o’ a kind, though not the luck I wanted. And we’ll christen this one
with your own name to bring me the luck I’ve always been seekin’.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Resolutely.] I won’t, Isaiah.
Bartlett—Ye will, Sarah, for I’ll make ye. Ye force me to it.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Again trying to get up.] Is this the way you talk to me
who’ve been a good wife to you for more than thirty years?
Bartlett—[Commandingly.] Wait! [Threateningly.] If ye don’t christen
her afore she sails, I’ll take Nat on the vige along with me. [Mrs. Bartlett
sinks back in her chair, stunned.] He wants to go, ye know it. He’s asked me
a hundred times. He s’spects—’bout the gold—but he don’t know for sartin.
But I’ll tell him the truth o’ it, and he’ll come with me, unless—
Mrs. Bartlett—[Looking at him with terror-stricken eyes—
imploringly.] You won’t do that, Isaiah? You won’t take Nat away from me
and drag him into sin? I know he’ll go if you give him the word, in spite of
what I say. [Pitifully.] You be only frightenin’ me! You can’t be so wicked
cruel as that.
Bartlett—I’ll do it, I take my oath—unless—
Mrs. Bartlett—[With hysterical anger.] Then I’ll tell him myself—of
the murders you did, and—
 Bartlett—[Grimly.] And I’ll say ’twas done in fair fight to keep them
from stealin’ the gold! I’ll tell him your’s is a woman’s notion, and he’ll
believe me, not you. He’s his father’s son, and he’s set to go. Ye know it,
Sarah. [She falls back in the chair hopelessly staring at him with horrified
eyes. He turns away and adds after a pause.] So ye’ll christen the Sarah
Allen in the mornin’ afore she sails, won’t ye, Sarah?
Mrs. Bartlett—[In a terrified tone.] Yes—if it’s needful to save Nat—
and God’ll forgive me when He sees my reason. But you—Oh, Isaiah! [She
shudders and then breaks down, sobbing.]
Bartlett—[After a pause, turns to her humbly as if asking her
forgiveness.] Ye mustn’t think hard o’ me that I want your name. It’s
because it’s a good woman’s name, and I know it’ll bring luck to our vige.
I’d find it hard to sail without it—the way things be.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Getting to her feet—in a state of feverish fear of him.]
I’m goin’ to home.
Bartlett—[Going to her.] I’ll help ye to the top o’ the hill, Sarah.
Mrs. Bartlett—[Shrinking from him in terror.] No. Don’t you touch
me! Don’t you touch me! [She hobbles quickly out of the door in the rear,
looking back frightenedly over her shoulder to see if he is following as

[The Curtain Falls]

 ACT THREE
Scene—Dawn of the following morning—exterior of the Bartlett home,
showing the main entrance, facing left, toward the harbor. On either side
of the door, two large windows, their heavy green shutters tightly closed.
In front of the door, a small porch, the roof supported by four white
column. A flight of three steps goes up to this porch from the ground. Two
paths lead to the steps through the straggly patches of grass, one around
the corner of the house to the rear, the other straight to the left to the edge
of the cliff where there is a small projecting iron platform, fenced in by a
rail. The top of a steel ladder can be seen. This ladder leads up the side or
the cliff from the shore below to the platform. The edge of the cliff extends
from the left corner front, half-diagonally back to the right, rear-center.
In the grey half-light of the dawn, Horne, Cates, and Jimmy Kanaka are
discovered. Horne is standing on the steel platform looking down at the
shore below. Cates is sprawled on the ground nearby. Jimmy squats on his
haunches, his eyes staring out to sea as if he were trying to pierce the
distance to the warm islands of his birth. Cates wears dungarees, Jimmy
dungaree pants and a black jersey; Horne, the same as in Act Two.
Cates—[With sluggish indifference.] Ain’t she finished with it yet?
Horne—[Irritably.] No, damn her! I kin see ’em all together on the
wharf at the bow o’ the schooner. That old crow o’ a woman o’ his! Why
the hell don’t she christen her and be done with it and let us make sail?
Cates—[After a pause.] Funny, ain’t it—his orderin’ us to come up here
and wait till it’s all done.
Horne—[Angrily.] That’s her doin’, too. She thinks we ain’t good
enough to be where she is. [After a pause.] But there’s nothin’ funny to me
that he does no more. He’s still out o’ his head, d’ye know that, Cates?
Cates—[Stupidly.] I ain’t noticed nothin’ diff’rent ’bout him.
Horne—[Scornfully.] He axed me if I ever seen them two in my sleep—
that cook and the boy o’ the Triton. Said he did often.
Cates—[Immediately protesting uneasily as if he had been accused.]
They was with us in the boat b’fore we fetched the island, that’s all ’bout
’em I remember. I was crazy, after.
Horne—[Looking at him with contempt.] So was we all crazy, for the
matter o’ that. I’ll not call ye a liar, Cates, but—a hell o’ a man ye be! You
wasn’t so out o’ your head that ye forgot the gold, was ye?
Cates—[His eyes glistening.] That’s diff’rent. Any man’d remember
that, even if he was crazy.
Horne—[With a greedy grin.] Aye. That’s the one thing I see in my
sleep. [Gloatingly.] We’ll dig it up soon now. In three months we’d ought to
be there—an’ then we’ll be rich, by Christ! [There is the faint sound of cries
from the beach below. Horne starts and turns to look down again.] They
must ’a’ finished it. [Cates and Jimmy come to the edge to look down.]
Jimmy—[Suddenly—with an eager childish curiosity.] That falla wife
Captain she make strong falla spell on ship, we sail fast, plenty good wind?
Horne—[Contemptuously.] Aye, that’s as near as ye’ll come to it. She’s
makin’ a spell. Ye stay here, Jimmy, and tell us when the Old Man is
comin’. [Jimmy remains looking down. Horne motions Cates to follow him,
front—then in a low voice, disgustedly.] Did ye hear that damn fool nigger?
Cates—[Grumblingly.] Why the hell is the Old Man givin’ him a full
share? One piece o’ it’d be enough for a nigger like him.
Horne—[Craftily.] There’s a way to get rid o’ him—if it comes to that.
He knifed them two, ye remember.
Cates—Aye.
Horne—The two o’ us can take oath to that in any court.
Cates—Aye.
Horne—[After a calculating look into his companion’s greedy eyes—
meaningly.] We’re two sane men, Cates—and the other two to share is a
lunatic and a nigger. The skipper’s showed me where there’s a copy o’ his
map o’ the island locked up in the cabin—in case anything happens to him
I’m to bring back the gold to his woman, he says. [He laughs harshly.]
Bring it back! Catch me! The fool! I’ll be open with ye, Cates. If I could
navigate and find the island myself I wouldn’t wait for a cracked man to
take me there. No, be damned if I would! Me and you’d chance it alone
someway or other.
Cates—[Greedily.] The two o’ us—share and share alike! [Then shaking
his head warningly.] But he’s a hard man to git the best on.
 Horne—[Grimly.] And I be a hard man, too. And he’s not right in his
head. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for a chance. Something may turn up—
and maybe—
Jimmy—[Turning to them.] Captain, he come. [Cates and Horne
separate hastily. Bartlett climbs into sight up the ladder to the platform.
He is breathing heavily but his expression is one of triumphant exultation.]
Bartlett—[Motions with his arms.] Down with ye and git aboard. The
schooner’s got a name now—a name that’ll bring us luck. We’ll sail on this
tide.
Horne—Aye—aye, sir.
Bartlett—I got to wait here till they climb up the path. I’ll be aboard
afore long. See that ye have her ready to cast off by then.
Horne—Aye—aye, sir. [He and Cates disappear down the ladder.
Jimmy lingers, looking sidewise at his Captain.]
Bartlett—[Noticing him—gruffly but almost kindly.] What are ye
waitin’ for?
Jimmy—[Volubly.] That old falla wife belong you, Captain, she make
strong falla spell for wind blow plenty? She catch strong devil charm for
schooner, Captain?
Bartlett—[Scowling.] What’s that, ye brown devil? [Then suddenly
laughing harshly.] Yes—a strong spell to bring us luck. [Roughly.] Git
aboard, ye dog! Don’t let her find ye here with me. [Jimmy disappears
hurriedly down the ladder. Bartlett remains at the edge looking down
after him. There is a sound of voices from the right and presently Mrs.
Bartlett, Sue, Drew and Nat enter, coming around the house from the
rear. Nat and Drew walk at either side of Mrs. Bartlett, who is in a state
of complete collapse, so that they are practically carrying her. Sue follows,
her handkerchief to her eyes. Nat keeps his eyes on the ground, his
expression fixed and gloomy. Drew casts a glance of angry indignation at
the Captain, who, after one indifferent look at them, has turned back to
watch the operations on the schooner below.]
Bartlett—[As they reach the steps of the house—intent on the work
below—makes a megaphone of his hands and shouts in stentorian tones.]
Look lively there, Horne!
Sue—[Protestingly.] Pa!
 Bartlett—[Wheels about. When he meets his daughter’s eyes he
controls his angry impatience and speaks gently.] What d’ye want, Sue?
Sue—[Pointing to her mother who is being assisted through the door—
her voice trembling.] You mustn’t shout. She’s very sick.
Bartlett—[Dully, as if he didn’t understand.] Sick?
Sue—[Turning to the door.] Wait. I’ll be right back. [She enters the
house. As soon as she is gone all of Bartlett’s excitement returns. He
paces up and down with nervous impatience. Nat comes out of the house.]
Nat—[In a tone of anxiety.] Ma seems bad. We can’t do anything. I’m
going for the doctor. [As his father doesn’t seem to hear him—tapping him
on the shoulder, his voice breaking.] Why did you make her do it, Pa? It
was too much for her strength. Wouldn’t anyone else or any other name
have done just as well?
Bartlett—[Impatiently.] No. It had to be.
Nat—When she spoke the words—and fell back in a faint—I thought
she was dead.
Bartlett—[Vaguely.] Weakness. She’ll be all right again after a rest.
[He draws Nat’s attention to the schooner.] Smart lines on that schooner,
boy. She’ll sail hell bent in a breeze. I knowed what I was about when I
bought her.
Nat—[Staring down fascinatedly.] How long will the voyage take?
Bartlett—[Preoccupied.] How long?
Nat—[Insinuatingly.] To get to the island.
Bartlett—Three months at most—with fair luck. [Exultantly.] And I’ll
have luck now!
Nat—Then in six months you may be back—with it?
Bartlett—Aye, with—[Stopping abruptly, turns and stares into his
son’s eyes—angrily.] With what? What boy’s foolishness be ye talkin’?
Nat—[Pleading fiercely.] I want to go, Pa! There’s no good in my
staying here any more. I can’t think of anything but—Oh, why don’t you be
fair and let me sail with you!
Bartlett—[Sternly, to conceal his uneasiness.] Keep clear o’ this, boy,
I’ve warned ye!
 Sue—[Appearing in doorway—indignantly.] Nat! Haven’t you gone for
the doctor yet?
Nat—[Shame-facedly.] I forgot.
Sue—Forgot!
Nat—[Starting off.] I’m going, Sue. [Then over his shoulder.] You won’t
sail before I come back, Pa? [Bartlett does not answer. Nat stands
miserably hesitating.]
Sue—Nat! For heaven’s sake! [Nat hurries off around the corner of the
house, rear. Sue comes to her father who is watching her with a queer,
humble, hunted expression.]
Bartlett—Well, Sue?
Sue—[Her voice trembling.] Oh, Pa, how can you do such terrible
things. How could you drag Ma out of bed at dawn to christen your old boat
—when you knew how sick she’s been!
Bartlett—[Avoiding her eyes.] It’s only weakness. She’ll get well o’ it
soon.
Sue—Pa! How can you say things like that—as if you didn’t care!
[Accusingly.] The way you’ve acted ever since you’ve been home almost,
anyone would think—you hated her!
Bartlett—[Wincing.] No!
Sue—Oh, Pa, what is it that has come between you? Can’t you tell me?
Can’t I help to set things right again?
Bartlett—[Mumblingly.] Nothin’—nothin’ ye kin help—nor me. Keep
clear o’ it, Sue. Danny—ye think o’ him, that’s enough for ye.
Sue—But things can’t go on like this. Don’t you see how it’s killing Ma?
Bartlett—She’ll forget her stubborn notions, now I be sailin’ away.
Sue—But you’re not—not going for a while now, are you?
Bartlett—Ain’t I been sayin’ I’d sail at dawn today? They’re makin’
her ready to cast off. I’m waitin’ for Horne to hail.
Sue—[Looking at him for a moment with shocked amazement.] But—
you can’t mean—right now!
Bartlett—[Keeping his face averted.] Aye—or we’ll miss this tide.
Sue—[Putting her hands on his shoulders and trying to look into his
face.] Pa! You can’t mean that! [His face is set with his obsessed
determination. She lets her hands fall with a shudder.] You can’t be as cruel
as that! Why, I thought, of course, you’d put off—[Wildly.] You have,
haven’t you, Pa? You did tell those men you couldn’t sail when you saw
how sick Ma was, didn’t you—when she fainted down on the wharf?
Bartlett—[Implacably.] I said I was sailin’ by this tide—and sail I
will, by thunder!
Sue—Pa! [Then pleadingly.] When the doctor comes and you hear what
he says—
Bartlett—[Roughly.] I ain’t stoppin’ on his word nor any man’s. I
know what’s best to do. [Intensely.] That schooner’s been fit to sail these
two weeks past. I been waitin’ on her stubborn will [he gestures toward the
house], eatin’ my heart out day and night. Then I swore I’d sail today. I tell
ye, Sue, I got a feelin’ in my bones if I don’t put out now I never will. Aye,
I feel it deep down inside me. [In a tone of superstitious awe.] And when
she christened the schooner—jest to the minute, mind ye!—a fair breeze
sprung up and come down out o’ the land to blow her out to sea—like a
sign o’ good luck.
Sue—[Aroused to angry indignation.] What kind of a man have you
become—to think of such things now! Oh, I can’t believe you’re the same
man who used to be my father!
Bartlett—Sue!
Sue—To talk cold-bloodedly of sailing away on a long voyage when
Ma’s inside—dying for all you seem to know or care! Oh, I hate you when
you’re like this! You’re not the father I love! You’ve changed into someone
else—hateful and cruel—and I hate him, I hate him! [She breaks down,
sobbing hysterically.]
Bartlett—[Who has listened to her with a face suddenly stricken by
fear and torturing remorse.] Sue! Ye don’t know what ye be sayin’, do ye?
Sue—I do! You’re not the same to me any more—or to any of us. I’m
afraid of you. And when you coldly propose to go away—now—I hate you,
yes I do! And I hate those three awful men who make you act this way. I
hate the schooner! I wish she and they were at the bottom of the sea!
Bartlett—[Frenziedly—putting his hand over her mouth to stop her
words.] Stop, girl! Don’t ye dare—
Sue—[Shrinking away from him—frightenedly.] Pa!
 Bartlett—[Bewilderedly, pleading for forgiveness.] Don’t heed that,
Sue—I didn’t mean—ye git me so riled—I’d not hurt ye for all the gold in
the world. But don’t ye talk wrong o’ things ye can’t know on.
Sue—Oh, Pa, what kind of things must they be—when you’re ashamed
to tell them!
Bartlett—I ain’t ashamed. It ain’t that. On’y they be things a girl’s no
call to meddle in. They be men’s business and I be man enough to carry ’em
out alone. Ye’ll know all they be to know—and your Ma and Nat, too—
when I come back from this vige. And the sooner I sail, the quicker I’ll be
back to ye. Oh, ye’ll be glad enough then—when ye see with your own
eyes! Ye’ll bless me then ’stead o’ turning agin me! [Hesitating for a second
—then somberly.] On’y now—till it’s all over and done—ye’d best keep
clear o’ it.
Sue—[Passionately.] I don’t care—I don’t want to know anything about
it. What I do know is that you can’t sail now. Oh, Pa, don’t you see you
can’t? Haven’t you any heart at all? Can’t you see how bad Ma is?
Bartlett—It’s the sight o’ me sickens her. She’ll git better with me
away from her.
Sue—No. She needs you. She doesn’t want you to go. She called your
name just a while ago—the only word she’s spoken since she christened the
ship. Come in to her, Pa! Tell her you won’t go!
Bartlett—[Desperately.] I got to git away from her, I tell ye, Sue!
She’s been houndin’ me ever since I got back—houndin’ me with her
stubborn tongue till she’s druv me mad, a’most! Ye’ve been on’y givin’
thought to her, not me. They’s my side to it, too!
Sue—I’ll talk to her, Pa. She can’t realize she’s hurting you or she
wouldn’t—And then everything will be just the same as it used to be again.
Bartlett—[Shaking his head.] They be too much between. The only
chance for that be my plan—to sail away and come back with—what I be
seekin’. Then she’ll give over her stubborn naggin’—if she’s human
woman. It’s for her sake as much as my own I’m goin’—for her and you
and Nat. [With a sudden return of his old resolution.] I’ve made up my
mind, I tell ye, and in the end ye’ll know I be right. [A hail in Horne’s
voice comes thinly up from the shore below. Bartlett starts, his eyes
gleaming.] Ye hear? It’s Horne hailin’ me to come. They be ready to cast
off. I’ll git aboard. [He starts for the ladder.]
 Sue—Pa! After all I’ve said—without one word of good-bye to Ma!
[Hysterically.] Oh, what can I do, what can I say to stop you! She hasn’t
spoken but that one call for you. She hardly seems to breathe. If it weren’t
for her eyes I’d believe she was dead—but her eyes look for you. She’ll die
if you go, Pa!
Bartlett—No!
Sue—You might just as well kill her now in cold blood as murder her
that way!
Bartlett—[Shaken—raising his hands as if to put them over his ears to
shut out her words—hoarsely.] No! Ye lie! She’ll live till I git back and
all’ll be as it was again!
Drew—[Appearing in the doorway, his face working with grief and
anger—harshly.] Captain Bartlett! [Then lowering his voice as he sees Sue.]
Mrs. Bartlett is asking to see you, Captain, before you go.
Sue—There! Didn’t I tell you, Pa!
Bartlett—[Struggling with himself—dully.] She’s wantin’ to bound me
again, that be all.
Sue—[Seeing him weakening—grasps his hand persuasively.] Pa! Come
with me. She won’t hound you. How silly you are! Come! [Hesitatingly,
head bowed, he follows her toward the door.]
Bartlett—[As he comes to Drew he stops and looks into the young
man’s angry, accusing face. He mutters half mockingly.] So ye, too, be agin
me, Danny?
Drew—[Unable to restrain his indignation.] What man that’s a real man
wouldn’t be against you, sir?
Sue—[Frightenedly.] Danny! Pa!
Bartlett—[In a sudden rage draws back his fist threateningly. Drew
stares into his eyes unflinchingly—Bartlett controls himself with an effort
and lets his arm fall to his side—scornfully.] Big words from a boy, Danny.
I’ll forget them this time—on account o’ Sue. [He turns to her.] I’m goin’ in
to her to please ye, Sue—but if ye think any words that she kin say’ll
change my mind, ye make a mistake—for I be sailin’ out as I planned I
would in spite o’ all hell! [He walks resolutely into the house. Sue follows
him after exchanging a hopeless glance with Danny.]
 Drew—[To himself—with a shudder.] He’s mad, damn him! [He paces
up and down. Horne appears on the ladder from below, followed by
Cates.]
Horne—[Coming forward and addressing Drew.] Is the skipper about?
Drew—[Curtly.] He’s in the house. You can’t speak to him now.
Horne—She’s ready to cast off. I hailed him from below but I ’spect he
didn’t hear. [As Drew makes no comment—impatiently.] If he don’t shake a
leg, we’ll miss the tide. There’s a bit o’ fair breeze, too.
Drew—[Glancing at him resentfully.] Don’t count on his sailing today.
It’s just as likely he’ll change his mind.
Horne—[Angrily.] Change his mind again? After us waitin’ and wastin’
time for weeks! [To Cates in a loud tone so Drew can hear.] What did I tell
ye, Cates? He’s crazy as hell.
Drew—[Sharply.] What’s that?
Horne—I was tellin’ Cates the skipper’s not right in his head [Angrily.]
What man in his senses’d do the way he does?
Drew—[Letting his resentment escape him.] That’s no lie, damn it!
Horne—[Surprised.] Aye, ye’ve seen it, too, have ye? [After a pause.]
Now I axe ye, as a sailor, how’d ye like to be puttin’ out on a vige with a
cracked man for skipper? [Sue comes out of the door, stops with a shudder
of disgust as she sees the two sailors, and stands listening. They do not
notice her presence.]
Drew—It seems to me a crazy voyage all round. What kind of trading is
it you’re to do?
Horne—[Suspiciously.] Ye’ll have to ask the skipper that.
Drew—[With a scornful shrug.] I was forgetting it’s such a dead secret.
That the craziest part, eh? [With sudden interest as if a new idea had come
to him.] But you know all about it, don’t you—what the Captain plans to do
on this voyage—and all that?
Horne—[Dryly.] Aye, as well as himself—but I’m tellin’ no man.
Drew—And I’m not asking. What do you suppose I care about any
sneaking trade deal in the Islands he may have up his sleeve? What I want
to find out is: Do you know enough about this business to make this one
voyage alone and attend to everything—in case the Captain can’t go?
 Horne—[Exchanging a quick glance with Cates—trying to hide his
eagerness.] Aye, I could do as well as any man alive. I’ve been sailin’ this
sea for twenty year or more and I know the Island trade inside and out. He
could trust me for it—and I’d make more money for him than he’s likely to
make with his head out o’ gear. [Then scowling.] On’y trouble is, who’d
Captain her if he ain’t goin’?
Drew—[Disappointedly.] Then you don’t know navigation enough for
that?
Horne—I’ve never riz above bo’sun. [Then after a pause in which he
appears to be calculating something—curiously.] Why d’ye ask me them
questions? [Insinuatingly—almost in a whisper.] It can’t be done ’less we
got an officer like you aboard.
Drew—[Angrily.] Eh? What’re you driving at? D’you think I—
Sue—[Who has been listening with aroused interest.] Danny! [She
comes down to him. Horne and Cates bob their heads respectfully and
move back near the platform. Horne watches Sue and Drew out of the
corner of his eye.] Danny, I’ve been listening to what you were saying, but I
don’t understand. What are you thinking of?
Drew [Excitedly.] I was thinking—Listen, Sue! Seems to me from what
I saw your Pa’s out of his right mind, and, being that way, he’s sure bound
to go unless someone or something steps in to stop him. D’you think your
Ma——?
Sue—[Shaking her head—sadly.] No, I’m afraid anything she says will
only make things worse.
Drew—Then you’ve no hope—? No more have I. Something’s got to be
done to keep him home in spite of himself. Even leaving your Ma out of it,
he’s not in any fit state to take a ship to sea; and I was thinking if we could
fix it some way so that fellow Horne could take her out on this voyage—
Sue—But, Danny, Pa’d never give in to that.
Drew—I wasn’t thinking he would. It’d have to be done on the sly. We
—you’d have to give the word—and keep him in the house somehow—and
then when he did come out it’d be too late. The schooner’d be gone.
Sue—[Disturbed, but showing that this plan has caught her mind.] But
—would it be fair?—he’d never forgive—
 Drew—When he’s back in his right mind again, he would. [Earnestly.]
I’m not fond of lying and tricks myself, Sue, but this is a case where you
can’t pick and choose. You can’t let him sail, and wreck his ship and
himself in the bargain, likely. Then, there’s your Ma——
Sue—No, no, we can’t let him. [With a glance at Horne and Cates.]
But I don’t trust those men.
Drew—No more do I; but it would be better to chance them than—
[Suddenly interrupting himself—with a shrug of his shoulders.] But there’s
no good talking of that. I was forgetting. None of them can navigate. They
couldn’t take her out.
Sue—But didn’t I hear him say—if they had an officer on board—like
you—
Drew—Yes, but where’ll you find one at a second’s notice?
Sue—[Meaningly.] And you told me, didn’t you, that you’d just got your
master’s papers. Then you’re a captain by rights.
Drew—[Looking at her with stunned astonishment.] Sue! D’you mean
—
Sue—[A light coming over her face.] Oh, Danny, we could trust you!
He’d trust you! And after he’d calmed down I know he wouldn’t mind so
much. Oh, Danny, it’ll break my heart to have you go, to send you away
just after you’ve come back. But I don’t see any other way. I wouldn’t ask
—if it wasn’t for Ma being, this way—and him—Oh, Danny, can’t you see
your way to do it—for my sake?
Drew—[Bewilderedly.] Why, Sue, I—I never thought—[Then as he sees
the look of disappointment which comes over her face at his hesitancy—
resolutely.] Why sure, Sue, I’ll do it—if you want me to. I’ll do it if it can
be done. But we’ve got to hustle. You stand in the door, Sue. You’ve got to
keep him in the house some way if he aims to come out. And I’ll talk to
them. [Sue goes to the doorway. Drew goes over to Horne and Cates.]
Sue—[After listening.] He’s still in with Ma. It’s all right.
Drew—[To Horne, with forced joviality.] How would you like me for
skipper on this one voyage?
Horne—[Craftily.] Ye got your skipper’s papers all reg’lar?
Drew—Yes, that part of it’s all right and square. Listen here. Miss Sue’s
decided her father isn’t in a fit state to Captain this trip. It’d mean danger
for him and the schooner—and for you.
Horne—That’s no lie.
Cates—[To Horne protestingly.] But if we git ketched the Old Man’ll
take it out o’ our hides, not his’n.
Horne—[Savagely.] Shut up, ye fool! [To Drew, craftily.] Cates is right,
jest the same. Ye are as good as his married son and she’s his daughter.
He’d not blame you if things went wrong. He’d take it out on us.
Drew—[Impatiently.] I’ll shoulder all that risk, man!
Sue—[Earnestly.] No harm will come to any of you, I promise you. This
is all my plan, and I’ll tell my father I’m alone to blame.
Horne—[In the tone of one clinching a bargain.] Then we’ll chance it.
[Warningly.] But it’s got to be done smart, sir. Ye’d best look lively.
Drew—I’ve got to get my dunnage. I’ll be right back and we’ll tumble
aboard. [He goes to the door.] Hold him, Sue, on some excuse if he’s
coming. Only a second now and it’ll all be safe. [He goes into the house.
She follows him in.]
Cates—[With stupid anger.] This is a hell o’ a mess we’re gettin’ in, if
ye axe me.
Horne—And I tell ye it’s a great stroke o’ luck. It couldn’t o’ come out
better.
Cates—He’ll be aboard to spy on us.
Horne—Let him! What does he know? He thinks we’re goin’ tradin’,
and there’s no one to tell him diff’rent but me.
Cates—He’ll know better afore long. He’ll s’pect—
Horne—’Bout the gold? He ain’t that kind. He’s a soft young swab o’ a
lady steamer’s mate. Leave me to fool him. And when the time comes to git
rid o’ him, I’ll find a means some way or other. But can’t ye see, ye fool,
it’s luck to have him with us till we git clear o’ civilized ports? He kin
navigate and he’s got skipper’s papers that’ll come in handy if there’s any
trouble. And if anythin’ goes wrong at the start and we’re brung back, him
and the girl’ll take the blame.
Cates—[Stupidly.] S’long as he don’t git no share o’ the gold——
Horne—[Contemptuously.] Share, ye dumbhead! I’d see him in hell first
—and send him there myself. [Drew comes out of the house carrying his
bag which he hands to Cates. Sue follows him.]
Drew—Look lively now! Let’s hustle aboard and get her under way.
Horne—Aye—aye, sir. [He and Cates clamber hurriedly down the
ladder.]
Sue—[Throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.] Good-bye,
Danny. It’s so fine of you to do this for us! I’ll never forget——
Drew—[Tenderly.] Ssssh! It’s nothing, Sue.
Sue—[Tearfully.] Oh, Danny, I hope I’m doing right! I’ll miss you so
dreadfully! But you’ll come back just as soon as you can—
Drew—Of course!
Sue—Danny! Danny! I love you so!
Drew—And I guess you know I love you, don’t you? [Kisses her.] And
we’ll be married when I come back this time sure?
Sue—Yes—yes—Danny—sure!
Drew—I’ve got to run. Good-bye, Sue.
Sue—Good-bye, dear. [They kiss for the last time and he disappears
down the ladder. She stands at the top, sobbing, following him with her
eyes. Nat comes around the house from the rear and goes to the front door.]
Nat—[Seeing his sister.] Sue! He hasn’t gone yet, has he? [She doesn’t
hear him. He hesitates in the doorway for a moment, listening for the sound
of his father’s voice from inside. Then, very careful to make no noise, he
tiptoes carefully into the house. Sue waves her hand to Drew who has
evidently now got aboard the ship. Then she covers her face with her hands,
sobbing. Nat comes out of the house again and goes to his sister. As she
sees him approaching, she dries her eyes hastily, trying to smile.]
Sue—Did you get the doctor, Nat?
Nat—Yes, he’s coming right away, he promised. [Looking at her face.]
What—have you been crying?
Sue—No. [She walks away from the edge of the cliff, drawing him with
her.]
Nat—Yes, you have. Look at your eyes.
Sue—Oh, Nat, everything’s so awful! [She breaks down again.]
Nat—[Trying to comfort her in an absentminded way.] There, don’t get
worked up. Ma’ll be all right as soon as the doctor comes. [Then curiously.]
Pa’s inside with her. They were arguing—have they made it up, d’you
think?
Sue—Oh, Nat, I don’t know. I don’t think so.
Nat—The strain’s been too much for him—waiting and hiding his secret
from all of us. What do you suppose it is, Sue—ambergris?
Sue—[Wildly.] I don’t know and I don’t care! [Noticing the strange
preoccupied look in his eyes—trying to bring him back to earth—
scornfully.] Ambergris! Are you going crazy? Don’t you remember you’ve
always been the first one to laugh at that silly idea?
Nat—Well, there’s something—— [Starts for the platform. Sue does her
best to interpose to hold him back.] Are they all ready on the schooner.
He’ll have to hurry if she’s going to sail on this tide. [With sudden passion.]
Oh, I’ve got to go! I can’t stay here! [Pleadingly.] Don’t you think, Sue, if
you were to ask him for me he’d—You’re the only one he seems to act sane
with or care about any more.
Sue—No! I won’t! I can’t!
Nat—[Angrily.] Haven’t you any sense? Wouldn’t it be better for
everyone if I went in his place?
Sue—No. You know that’s a lie. Ma would lose her mind if you went.
Nat—And I’ll lose mine if I stay! [Half aware of Sue’s intention to keep
him from looking down at the schooner—irritably.] What are you holding
my arm for, Sue? I want to see what they’re doing. [He pushes her aside
and goes to the platform—excitedly.] Hello, they’ve got the fores’l and
mains’l set. They’re setting the stays’l. [In amazement.] Why—they’re
casting off! She’s moving away from the wharf! [More and more excitedly.]
I see four of them on board! Who—who is that, Sue?
Sue—It’s Danny.
Nat—[Furiously.] Danny! What right has he—when I can’t! Sue, call
Pa! They’re sailing, I tell you, you little fool!
Sue—[Trying to calm him—her voice trembling.] Nat! Don’t be such a
donkey! Danny’s only going a little way—just trying the boat to see how
she sails while they’re waiting for Pa.
Nat—[Uncertainly.] Oh. [Then bitterly.] I was never allowed to do even
that—his own son! Look, Sue, that must be Danny at the stern waving.
 Sue—[Brokenly.] Yes. [She waves her handkerchief over her head—then
breaks down, sobbing again. There is the noise of Bartlett’s voice from
inside and a moment later he appears in the doorway. He seems terribly
shattered, at the end of his tether. He hesitates uncertainly, looking about
him wildly as if he didn’t know what to do or where to go.]
Sue—[After one look at his face, runs to him and flings her arms about
his neck.] Pa! [She weeps on his shoulder.]
Bartlett—Sue, ye did wrong beggin’ me to see her. I knowed it’d do
no good. Ye promised she’d not hound me——“Confess,” she says—when
they be naught to tell that couldn’t be swore to in any court. “Don’t go on
this vige,” she says, “there be the curse o’ God on it.” [With a note of
baffled anguish.] She kin say that after givin’ the ship her own name! [With
wild, haggard defiance.] But curse or no curse, I be goin’! [He moves
toward the platform, Sue clinging to his arm.]
Sue—[Frightenedly.] Pa! Go back in the house, won’t you?
Bartlett—I be sorry to go agin your will, Sue, but it’s got to be. Ye’ll
know the reason some day—and be glad o’ it. And now good-bye to ye.
[With a sudden strange tenderness he bends and kisses his daughter. Then
as she seems about to protest further, his expression becomes stern and
inflexible.] No more o’ talk, Sue! I be bound out. [He takes her hand off his
arm and strides to the platform. One look down at the harbor and he stands
transfixed—in a hoarse whisper.] What damned trick be this? [He points to
the schooner and turns to Nat bewilderedly.] Ain’t that my schooner, boy—
the Sarah Allen—reachin’ toward the p’int?
Nat—[Surprised.] Yes, certainly. Didn’t you know? Danny’s trying her
to see how she sails while they’re waiting for you.
Bartlett—[With a tremendous sigh of relief.]
Aye. [Then angrily.] He takes a lot o’ rope to himself without askin’
leave o’ me. Don’t he know they’s no time to waste on boy’s foolin’? [Then
with admiration.] She sails smart, don’t she, boy? I knowed she’d show a
pair o’ heels.
Nat—[With enthusiasm.] Yes, she’s a daisy! Say, Danny’s taking her
pretty far out, isn’t he?
Bartlett—[Anxiously.] He’d ought to come about now if he’s to tack
back inside the p’int. [Furiously.] Come about, damn ye! The swab! That’s