Heuristic algorithms for a vehicle routing problem with simultaneous delivery and pickup and time windows in home health care

This paper addresses a vehicle scheduling problem encountered in home health care logistics. It concerns the delivery of drugs and medical devices from the home care company’s pharmacy to patients’ homes, delivery of special drugs from a hospital to patients, pickup of bio samples and unused drugs and medical devices from patients. The problem can be considered as a special vehicle routing problem with simultaneous delivery and pickup and time windows, with four types of demands: delivery from depot to patient, delivery from a hospital to patient, pickup from a patient to depot and pickup from a patient to a medical lab. Each patient is visited by one vehicle and each vehicle visits each node at most once. Patients are associated with time windows and vehicles with capacity. Two mixed-integer programming models are proposed. We then propose a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a Tabu Search (TS) method. The GA is based on a permutation chromosome, a split procedure and local search. The TS is based on route assignment attributes of patients, an augmented cost function, route re-optimization, and attribute-based aspiration levels. These approaches are tested on test instances derived from existing VRPTW benchmarks.     

Phase shifting photoelasticity in white light

The availability of image acquisition systems has led to the development of digital photoelasticity both in monochromatic and white light. In particular white light has been used mainly with the following methods: Spectral Content Analysis, RGB photoelasticity and phase shifting photoelasticity. Phase shifting photoelasticity in the colour domain has been used effectively for the determination of the isoclinic parameter in order to reduce the influence of the isochromatic fringes. The method has been also proposed for the determination of the isochromatic fringe order. This paper concerns the general characteristics of phase shifting photoelasticity in the colour domain. Special attention is drawn towards the influence of spectral content of the light source, the spectral response of the colour camera filters, the dispersion of the birefringence and the error of quarter wave plates.     

Effect of material selection and background impurity on interface property and resulted CIP-GMR performance

In this paper, we investigated the effect of background base pressure, wafer-transferring time between process modules, and stack layer material selection on the current-in-plane giant magneto-resistive (CIP-GMR) interface properties and the resulted CIP-GMR performance. Experimental results showed that seed layer/AFM interface, AFM/pinned layer (PL) interface, pinned layer/Ru interface, and reference layer (RL)/Cu spacer interface are among the most critical ones for a CIP-GMR device. By reducing the background impurity level (water moisture and oxygen), optimizing the wafer process flow sequence, and careful stack-layer material selection, such critical interfaces in a CIP-GMR device can be preserved. Consequently, a much robust GMR performance control can be achieved.     

Unprecedented Double aza‐Michael Addition within a Sapphyrin Core

A novel sapphyrin derivative was obtained from the reaction between a free‐base sapphyrin and dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate (DMAD). The formation of the new compound involved a double aza‐Michael addition of two pyrrolic NH groups to a DMAD molecule, with the formation of a disubstituted ethano bridge. The NMR spectral data reveal a product with an unsymmetrical structure; DFT calculations provided support for a structure in which the ethano bridge links two adjacent pyrrole units. The present study provides a seemingly unprecedented example of an N,N′‐dinucleophile reacting with DMAD to form a heterocyclic compound in which the two N‐atoms are linked to the two sp³ carbon atoms derived from a substituted acetylene.     

Evaluation of Immobilized Metal-Ion Affinity Chromatography (IMAC) as a Technique for IgG1 Monoclonal Antibodies Purification: The Effect of Chelating Ligand and Support

Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been used for therapies and some analytical procedures as highly purified molecules. Many techniques have been applied and studied, focusing on monoclonal antibodies purification. In this study, an immobilized metal affinity chromatography membrane was developed and evaluated for the purification of anti-TNP IgG₁ mouse MAbs from cell culture supernatant after precipitation with a 50% saturated ammonium sulfate solution. The chelating ligands iminodiacetic acid, carboxymethylated aspartic acid (CM-Asp), nitrilotriacetic acid, and tris (carboxymethyl) ethylenediamine in agarose gels with immobilized Ni(II) and Zn(II) ions were compared for the adsorption and desorption of MAbs. The most promising chelating ligand—CM-Asp—was then coupled to poly(ethylene vinyl alcohol) (PEVA) hollow fiber membranes. According to SDS-PAGE and ELISA analyses, a higher selectivity and a purification factor of 85.9 (fraction eluted at 500 mM Tris) were obtained for IgG₁ using PEVA-CM-Asp-Zn(II). The anti-TNP MAb could be eluted under mild pH conditions causing no loss of antigen binding capacity.     

Singularities of positive supersolutions in elliptic PDEs

We present several extensions of the Brezis–Lions Lemma on removable singularities. We also give a positive answer to a question raised by H. Brezis and M. Marcus about an inverse maximum principle for the Laplacian.     

Kato's inequality when Δu is a measure

We extend the classical version of Kato's inequality in order to allow functions u∈L¹_loc such that Δu is a Radon measure. This inequality has been recently applied by Brezis, Marcus, and Ponce to study the existence of solutions of the nonlinear equation ?Δu+g(u)=μ, where μ is a measure and $\text{g}\text{:}\text{R}\text{→}\text{R}$ is a nondecreasing continuous function. To cite this article: H. Brezis, A.C. Ponce, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 338 (2004).     

Edge-enhanced imaging with polyvinyl alcohol/acrylamide photopolymer gratings

We demonstrate edge-enhanced imaging produced by volume phase gratings recorded on a polyvinyl alcohol/acrylamide photopolymer. Bragg diffraction, exhibited by volume gratings, modifies the impulse response of the imaging system, facilitating spatial filtering operations with no need for a physical Fourier plane. We demonstrate that Kogelnik's coupled-wave theory can be used to calculate the transfer function for the transmitted and the diffracted orders. The experimental and simulated results agree, and they demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal.     

Limits on the cosmological abundance of supermassive compact objects from a search for multiple imaging in compact radio sources

Using very long baseline interferometry we have searched a sample of 300 compact radio sources for examples of multiple imaging produced by gravitational lensing; no multiple images were found with separations in the angular range 1.5--50 milliarcsec. This null result allows us to place a limit on the cosmological abundance of intergalactic supermassive compact objects in the mass range approximately 10(6)M( middle dot in circle) to approximately 10(8)M( middle dot in circle); such objects cannot make up more than approximately 1% of the closure density ( 95% confidence). A uniformly distributed population of supermassive black holes forming soon after the big bang does not, therefore, contribute significantly to the dark matter content of the Universe.     

Inferring topological features of proteins from amino acid residue networks

Topological properties of native folds are obtained from statistical analysis of 160 low homology proteins covering the four structural classes. This is done analyzing one, two and three-vertex joint distribution of quantities related to the corresponding network of amino acid residues. Emphasis on the amino acid residue hydrophobicity leads to the definition of their center of mass as vertices in this contact network model with interactions represented by edges. The network analysis helps us to interpret experimental results such as hydrophobic scales and fraction of buried accessible surface area in terms of the network connectivity. Moreover, those networks show assortative mixing by degree. To explore the vertex-type dependent correlations, we build a network of hydrophobic and polar vertices. This procedure presents the wiring diagram of the topological structure of globular proteins leading to the following attachment probabilities between hydrophobic–hydrophobic 0.424(5), hydrophobic-polar 0.419(2) and polar–polar 0.157(3) residues.