Impact of information sharing and lead time on bullwhip effect and on-hand inventory

This work analyzes a two echelon (warehouse–retailer) serial supply chain to study the impact of information sharing (IS) and lead time on bullwhip effect and on-hand inventory. The customer demand at the retailer is assumed to be an autoregressive (AR(1)) process. Both the echelons use a minimum mean squared error (MMSE) model for forecasting lead time demand (LTD), and follow an adaptive base-stock inventory policy to determine their respective order quantities. For the cases of without IS and inter as well as intra echelon IS, expressions for the bullwhip effect and on-hand inventory for the warehouse are obtained, considering deterministic lead-time. The results are compared with the previous research work and an easy analysis of the various bullwhip effect expressions under different scenarios, is done to understand the impact of IS on the bullwhip effect phenomenon. It is shown that some part of bullwhip effect will always remain even after sharing both inter as well as intra echelon information. Further, with the help of a numerical example it is shown that the lead time reduction is more beneficial in comparison to the sharing of information in terms of reduction in the bullwhip effect phenomenon.     

Wavelet-based dynamic time warping

Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), a pattern matching technique traditionally used for restricted vocabulary speech recognition, is based on a temporal alignment of the input signal with the template models. The principal drawback of DTW is its high computational cost as the lengths of the signals increase. This paper shows extended results over our previously published conference paper, which introduces an optimized version of the DTW that is based on the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT).     

Lagrangean relaxation based heuristics for lot sizing with setup times

We consider a lot sizing problem with setup times where the objective is to minimize the total inventory carrying cost only. The demand is dynamic over time and there is a single resource of limited capacity. We show that the approaches implemented in the literature for more general versions of the problem do not perform well in this case. We examine the Lagrangean relaxation (LR) of demand constraints in a strong reformulation of the problem. We then design a primal heuristic to generate upper bounds and combine it with the LR problem within a subgradient optimization procedure. We also develop a simple branch and bound heuristic to solve the problem. Computational results on test problems taken from the literature show that our relaxation procedure produces consistently better solutions than the previously developed heuristics in the literature.     

热处理条件对R-PET/LLDPE-g-MA共混物中PET玻璃化转变行为的影响

对回收聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯(R-PET)/LLDPE-g-MA马来酸酐改性的线性低密度聚乙烯共混物进行不同条件的热处理, 采用差示扫描量热仪(DSC)研究共混物基体PET的玻璃化转变行为. 结果表明, 当热处理温度低于PET的玻璃化转变温度(Tg)时, PET的玻璃化转变区域出现热焓松弛现象. 随着热处理温度的增加, PET的Tg逐渐升高; 在50~70 ℃下热处理48 h后, PET的Tg逐渐稳定. 当热处理温度高于PET的Tg而低于100 ℃时, PET的玻璃化转变区域出现2个热流转变, FTIR分析表明, PET分子构象开始发生变化. 当热处理温度为100 ℃时, DSC曲线上PET的玻璃化转变消失, PET的结晶度明显增加, 说明PET开始冷结晶的温度在90~100 ℃之间.     

Time‐dependent density functional calculations on the electronic spectra of the neutral nickel complex [Ni(LISQ)2] (LISQ = 3,5‐di‐tert‐butyl‐o‐diiminobenzosemiquinonate(1−)) and its monoanion and dication

The electronic spectrum of the neutral nickel complex [Ni(L^ISQ)₂] (L^ISQ = 3,5‐di‐tert‐butyl‐o‐diiminobenzosemiquinonate(1^?)) and the spectra of its anion and dication have been calculated by means of time‐dependent density functional theory. The electronic ground state of the neutral complex exhibits an open shell singlet diradical character. The mandatory multireference problem for this electronic ground state has been treated approximately by using the unrestricted and spin symmetry broken Kohn‐Sham Slater determinant as the wave function for the noninteracting reference system in the time‐dependent density functional calculations. A reasonable agreement with observed transition energies and band intensities has been achieved. This holds also for the long wavelength transitions that are shown to be of charge transfer type. The charge distributions in the electronic ground state and the corresponding low lying excited states, however, are rather similar. Thus, the known failure of standard time‐dependent density functional theory to describe improperly long range charge transfer transitions is absent in this work. The applied computational scheme might be adequate for calculating electronic spectra of transition metal complexes with noninnocent ligands. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2009     

Headspace solid phase microextraction in the determination of pesticides in water samples from the Okavango Delta with gas chromatography-electron capture detection and time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) was optimized for the analysis of pesticides with gas chromatography electron capture detection (GC-ECD) and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Factors influencing the extraction efficiency such as fiber type, extraction mode and temperature, effect of ionic strength, stirring and extraction time were evaluated. The lowest pesticide concentrations that could be detected in spiked aliquots after HS-SPME–GC-ECD ranged from 0.0005 to 0.0032 μg L^{− 1}. Consequently hexachlorobenzene, trans-chlordane, 4,4′-DDD and 4,4′-DDE were detected in water samples after HS-SPME at concentrations ranging from 2.4 to 61.4 μg L^{− 1} that are much higher than the 0.1 μg L^{− 1} maximum limit of individual organochlorine pesticides in drinking water set by the European Community Directive. The same samples were cleaned with ISOLUTE C₁₈ SPE sorbent with an optimal acetone/n-hexane (1:1 v/v) mixture for the elution of analytes. No pesticides were detected after SPE clean-up and pre-concentration. Precision for both methods was satisfactory with relative standard deviations less than 20%. This work demonstrated the superiority of HS-SPME as a sample clean-up and pre-concentration technique for pesticides in water samples as well as the need to identify and control point sources of pesticides.     

Molecular dynamics of an epoxy resin modified with an epoxidized poly(styrene-butadiene) linear block copolymer during cure and microphase separation processes

Molecular dynamics of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy resin modified with an epoxidized poly(styrene-b-butadiene) (SepB) linear block copolymer has been monitored during cure and microphase separation process by dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) for wide frequency and temperature ranges. Different primary and secondary relaxation processes have been analyzed for neat components and ternary mixture. Relaxational behaviour has been modelled with Havriliak-Negami, Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann and Arrhenius equations and fitting parameters and their evolution have been obtained. The retention of the epoxidized poly(butadiene) (PepB) block in the epoxy-rich phase during all the polymerization process, previously detected by our group with atomic force and transmission electron microscopies, has been confirmed by dielectric relaxation spectroscopy. The evolution of molecular dynamics during the polymerization process of the epoxy resin in the ternary system indicates a change in the trend of the main relaxation at times that agree with phase separation detected by rheology.     

Fluorescein thiocarbamyl amino acids as internal standards for migration time correction in capillary sieving electrophoresis

A number of algorithms have been developed to correct for migration time drift in capillary electrophoresis. Those algorithms require identification of common components in each run. However, not all components may be present or resolved in separations of complex samples, which can confound attempts for alignment. This paper reports the use of fluorescein thiocarbamyl derivatives of amino acids as internal standards for alignment of 3-(2-furoyl)quinoline-2-carboxaldehyde (FQ)-labeled proteins in capillary sieving electrophoresis. The fluorescein thiocarbamyl derivative of aspartic acid migrates before FQ-labeled proteins and the fluorescein thiocarbamyl derivative of arginine migrates after the FQ-labeled proteins. These compounds were used as internal standards to correct for variations in migration time over a two-week period in the separation of a cellular homogenate. The experimental conditions were deliberately manipulated by varying electric field and sample preparation conditions. Three components of the homogenate were used to evaluate the alignment efficiency. Before alignment, the average relative standard deviation in migration time for these components was 13.3%. After alignment, the average relative standard deviation in migration time for these components was reduced to 0.5%.