Dynamic scheduling of recreational rental vehicles with revenue management extensions

The rental fleet scheduling problem (RFSP) arises in vehicle-rental operations that offer a wide variety of vehicle types to customers, and allow a rented vehicle to ‘migrate’ to a setdown depot other than the pickup depot.When there is a shortage of vehicles of a particular type at a depot, vehicles may be relocated to that depot, or vehicles of similar types may be substituted.The RFSP involves assigning vehicles to rentals so as to minimise the costs of these operations, and arises in both static and online contexts. The authors have adapted a well-known assignment algorithm for application in the online context. In addition, a network-flow algorithm with more comprehensive coverage of problem conditions is used to investigate the determination of rental pricing using revenue management principles. The paper concludes with an outline of the algorithms’ use in supporting the operations of a large recreational vehicle rental company.     

DNA Vector Polyethyleneimine Affects Cell pH and Membrane Potential: A Time-Resolved Fluorescence Microscopy Study

Polyethyleneimine (PEI) is one of the very efficient nonviral vectors being developed and tested for artificial gene transfer into target cells. One of its serious limitations is the significant cytotoxicity of the large amounts of free PEI in the mixtures of DNA and PEI used for transfection. To further investigate the cellular effects of free PEI, we have analyzed the PEI-induced alterations of various cell parameters such as membrane heterogeneity and fluidity, cytoplasmic pH, and plasma membrane potential in a variety of cells such as Swiss 3T3 fibroblast, Chinese hamster ovary, insect cells SF9, plant cell line BY2, and Saccharomyces cerevisae. Fluorescence probes such as Nile red, SNARF-1, and cyanine dye DiSC₂(3), coupled with the technique of picosecond time-resolved fluorescence microscopy, were used in estimating the above-mentioned cell parameters. It was found that the cell membranes were largely unperturbed by PEI. However, the cytoplasmic pH showed an increase of 0.1–0.4 units when the cells were treated with PEI. The plasma membrane potential was found to be depolarized in S. cerevisae and Swiss 3T3 cells. These results suggest that the cytotoxic effects of PEI may partly originate from inhibition of regulation of cytoplasmic pH and plasma membrane potential. Further, it is proposed that the resultant cell alterations favors the transfection process.     

Inducing chaos by resonant perturbations: theory and experiment

We propose a scheme to induce chaos in nonlinear oscillators that either are by themselves incapable of exhibiting chaos or are far away from parameter regions of chaotic behaviors. Our idea is to make use of small, judiciously chosen perturbations in the form of weak periodic signals with time-varying frequency and phase, and to drive the system into a hierarchy of nonlinear resonant states and eventually into chaos. We demonstrate this method by using numerical examples and a laboratory experiment with a Duffing type of electronic circuit driven by a phase-locked loop. The phase-locked loop can track the instantaneous frequency and phase of the Duffing circuit and deliver resonant perturbations to generate robust chaos.     

TRANES Spectra of Fluorescence Probes in Lipid Bilayer Membranes: An Assessment of Population Heterogeneity and Dynamics

Time-resolved fluorescence of eight fluorescence probes were studied in EggPC bilayer membrane vesicles. Emission wavelength dependent fluorescence decays were analyzed in a model-independent way to obtain time resolved area normalized emission spectra (TRANES). The TRANES spectra of the probes studied were classified into four types: (1) spectra that are identical at all time (one emissive species), (2) spectra that show an isoemissive point (two emissive species), (3) spectra that shift continuously with time (slow solvation dynamics or multiple species), and (4) spectra that shift for a short time and thereafter one or two emissive species are indicated. The TRANES spectra of these eight probes, except RH421, belong to the type 1, 2, or 4. The continuous shift of the TRANES spectra that was observed for the probe RH421 is attributed to multiple ground state species and not due to slow solvation dynamics.     

Determination of gold in low grade ores and concentrates by anion exchange separation followed by neutron activation

The beneficiation of tailings from Kolar Gold Mines involves the flotation of sulphides. Appreciable amounts of arsenic and antimony are expected to accompany gold in this process. The activation analysis of gold in these samples is facilitated by a preseparation of gold from arsenic and antimony. The present paper describes a method for the rapid analysis of gold in the concentration range 0.5 to 50 ppm using a simple pre-irradiation separation, with the recovery of gold being evaluated by an isotope dilution technique using¹⁹⁸Au tracer.     

The capacitated multiple allocation hub location problem: Formulations and algorithms

In this paper we consider and present formulations and solution approaches for the capacitated multiple allocation hub location problem. We present a new mixed integer linear programming formulation for the problem. We also construct an efficient heuristic algorithm, using shortest paths. We incorporate the upper bound obtained from this heuristic in a linear-programming-based branch-and-bound solution procedure. We present the results of extensive computational experience with both the heuristic and the exact methods.     

An upwinded state approximate Riemann solver

Stability is achieved in most approximate Riemann solvers through ‘flux upwinding’, where the flux at the interface is arrived at by adding a dissipative term to the average of the left and right flux. Motivated by the existence of a collapsed interface state in the gas‐kinetic Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) method, an alternative approach to upwinding is attempted here; an interface state is arrived at by taking an upwinded average of left and right states, and then the flux is calculated as a function of this ‘collapsed’ interface state. This so called ‘state‐upwinding’ approach gives rise to a new scheme called the linearized Riemann solver for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations. The scheme is shown to be closely associated with the Roe scheme. It is, however, computationally less expensive and gives qualitatively comparable results over a wide range of problems. Most importantly, this scheme is found to preserve stationary contacts while not exhibiting the carbuncle phenomenon which plagues the Roe and other contact‐preserving schemes. The scheme is therefore motivated as a new starting point to analyze the origin of the carbuncle phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.