A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products

The blood assignment problem is an important real-world optimization problem because of the continuous demand for blood transfusion during medical emergencies. The formulation of this problem stretches from managing critical blood shortage levels and blood unit expiration, to blood compatibility bet...

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Main Authors: Prinolan Govender, Absalom E. Ezugwu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2019-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8573773/
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author Prinolan Govender
Absalom E. Ezugwu
author_facet Prinolan Govender
Absalom E. Ezugwu
author_sort Prinolan Govender
collection DOAJ
description The blood assignment problem is an important real-world optimization problem because of the continuous demand for blood transfusion during medical emergencies. The formulation of this problem stretches from managing critical blood shortage levels and blood unit expiration, to blood compatibility between donor and patients. Another contributing factor to the blood assignment problem lies in the blood bank having to import additional blood units from external sources when supply cannot meet the demand. These challenges have serious consequences especially in the case where the demand for the blood is very high. Therefore, there is the need to minimize blood product wastage with regards to expiration and importation, whilst maximizing product delivery to patients in need. To solve this problem, existing studies used fixed percentage bounds to generate values for demand and supply of whole blood units. However, in this paper, a different approach is considered when generating such values, which involves allocating a unique percentage bound to each month. The bounds conform to statistics taken from South African social behavior with the attempt at generating values which mimic real-life monthly demand and supply of whole blood units. Furthermore, this study implements a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm that combines symbiotic organisms search algorithm with the blood assignment policy in relation to the blood banks of South Africa to effectively minimize the operational costs of the blood transfusion centers. The computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm performed quite satisfactorily from the computational time, stock-piling, and low importation level points of view.
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spelling doaj.art-ebfc065454da44e28e720ace18479c6e2022-12-21T23:25:35ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362019-01-0172567258810.1109/ACCESS.2018.28864088573773A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood ProductsPrinolan Govender0Absalom E. Ezugwu1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3721-3400School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Durban, South AfricaSchool of Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus, Pietermaritzburg, South AfricaThe blood assignment problem is an important real-world optimization problem because of the continuous demand for blood transfusion during medical emergencies. The formulation of this problem stretches from managing critical blood shortage levels and blood unit expiration, to blood compatibility between donor and patients. Another contributing factor to the blood assignment problem lies in the blood bank having to import additional blood units from external sources when supply cannot meet the demand. These challenges have serious consequences especially in the case where the demand for the blood is very high. Therefore, there is the need to minimize blood product wastage with regards to expiration and importation, whilst maximizing product delivery to patients in need. To solve this problem, existing studies used fixed percentage bounds to generate values for demand and supply of whole blood units. However, in this paper, a different approach is considered when generating such values, which involves allocating a unique percentage bound to each month. The bounds conform to statistics taken from South African social behavior with the attempt at generating values which mimic real-life monthly demand and supply of whole blood units. Furthermore, this study implements a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm that combines symbiotic organisms search algorithm with the blood assignment policy in relation to the blood banks of South Africa to effectively minimize the operational costs of the blood transfusion centers. The computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm performed quite satisfactorily from the computational time, stock-piling, and low importation level points of view.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8573773/Blood assignment problemblood productblood groupblood compatibilitysymbiotic organisms search algorithmSOS
spellingShingle Prinolan Govender
Absalom E. Ezugwu
A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
IEEE Access
Blood assignment problem
blood product
blood group
blood compatibility
symbiotic organisms search algorithm
SOS
title A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
title_full A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
title_fullStr A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
title_full_unstemmed A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
title_short A Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm for Optimal Allocation of Blood Products
title_sort symbiotic organisms search algorithm for optimal allocation of blood products
topic Blood assignment problem
blood product
blood group
blood compatibility
symbiotic organisms search algorithm
SOS
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8573773/
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