Improved load balancing and resource utilization for the Skill Vehicle Routing Problem

The Skill Vehicle Routing Problem (Skill VRP) considers vehicle routing under the assumption of skill requirements given on demand nodes. These requirements have to be met by the serving vehicles. No further constraints, like capacity or cost restrictions, are imposed. Skill VRP solutions may show a tendency to have a bad load balancing and resource utilization. In a majority of solutions only a subset of vehicles is active. Moreover, a considerable share of demand nodes is served by vehicles that have a skill higher than necessary. A reason for that solution behavior lies in the model itself. As no resource restrictions are imposed, the Skill VRP tends to produce TSP-like solutions. To obtain better balanced solutions, we introduce two new approaches. First we propose a minmax model that aims at minimizing the maximal vehicle tour length. Second we suggest a two-step method combining the minmax approach with a distance constrained model. Our experiments illustrate that these approaches lead to improvements in load balancing and resource utilization, but, with different impact on routing costs.     

A Method of Manufacturing Highly Conductive Composite Materials by Coating Surfaces of Nonconductors with Fine Particulate Conductive Substances

 A widely applicable aqueous dip-coating process termed substrate induced coagulation (SIC) suitable for coating various types of substrates (e.g. polar and unpolar polymers, inorganic glasses, metals) with fine particulate materials (e.g. carbon blacks, small particle size SiO₂ or TiO₂) has been developed. This process is based on the interaction of a conditioner (water soluble polymers or polyelectrolytes, e.g. proteins, polyvinylalcohols, polyacrylates with low charge density) which is adsorbed on the substrate with a surfactant-stabilized dispersion containing some additional electrolyte. Employing dispersions of conductive particles, the resulting coatings can be used as a conductive starting layer for electroplating. Such layers are fairly rinse-proof and may be applied in the metallization process of through holes in printed wiring boards or for the production of highly conductive composite materials from coated particles. SIC has also been used to improve the distribution of carbon in composite battery electrodes such as MnO₂/C.     

Bacteriostatic Behavior of PLA-BaTiO3 Composite Fibers Synthesized by Centrifugal Spinning and Subjected to Aging Test

The present work investigated the effect of Polylactic acid (PLA) fibers produced by centrifugal spinning with incorporated BaTiO₃ particles to improve their bacteriostatic behavior. The PLA matrix and three composites, presenting three different amounts of fillers, were subjected to UV/O₃ treatment monitoring the possible modifications that occurred over time. The morphological and physical properties of the surfaces were characterized by different microscopic techniques, contact angle, and surface potential measurements. Subsequently, the samples were tested in vitro with human dermal fibroblasts (HDF) to verify the cytotoxicity of the substrates. No significant differences between the PLA matrix and composites emerged; the high hydrophobicity of the fibers, derived by the polymer structure, represented an obstacle limiting the fibroblast attachment. Samples underwent bacterial exposure (Staphylococcus epidermidis) for 12 and 24 h. Increasing the concentration of BT, the number of living bacteria and their distribution decreased in comparison with the PLA matrix suggesting an effect of the inorganic filler, which generates a neutralization effect leading to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and subsequently to bacterial damages. These results suggest that the barium titanate (BT) fillers clearly improve the antibacterial properties of PLA fibers after aging tests made before bacterial exposure, representing a potential candidate in the creation of composites for medical applications.     

Direct carbamation of cellulose fiber sheets

The paper is on introducing carbamate groups in sheets of cellulose fiber assemblies by pad-dry-cure treatments with aqueous solutions of polyethylene glycol, amide and salt. The effects of process variables—on carbamation levels and on mechanical properties of the substrate—are reported. Depending on treatment conditions, the nitrogen contents in substrates are in the range 0.668–2.252 wt%, corresponding to nominal degrees of carbamate group substitution of 0.08–0.28. The carbamation is initiated at 140 °C curing, and the levels rise with temperature up to 220 °C, but decrease at higher temperatures. The duration of curing also exerts an influence. There is a catalytic effect of sodium acetate on the carbamation, but the salt also induces a brown coloration in samples, which is likely a result of Maillard-type reactions. The treatments cause hydrolytic degradation in substrates, but there are options to adjust treatment conditions and minimize damage. Pad-dry-cure treatments are a common operation in the textile and paper industries, and the process may be adopted in commercial-scale operations to create derivatized paper or fabrics (woven, knitted or non-woven) for utilization in applications such as adsorbents for heavy metals from waste water, in hygiene products, in the creation of flame retardant products, or in creating all-cellulose composites by further treatment with alkali.     

Unconventional Approaches to Hydrogen Sorption Reactions: Non-Thermal and Non-Straightforward Thermally Driven Methods

In the last decades, a broad family of hydrides have attracted attention as prospective hydrogen storage materials of very high gravimetric and volumetric capacity, fast H₂-sorption kinetics, environmental friendliness and economical affordability. However, constraints due to their high activation energies of the different H₂-sorption steps and the Gibbs energy of their reaction with H₂ has led to the need of high thermal energy to drive H₂ uptake and release. High heat leads to significant degradation effects (recrystallization, phase segregation, nanoparticles agglomeration…) of the hydrides. In this context, this short review aims to summarize alternative non-thermal methods and non-straightforward thermally driven methods to overcome the previous constraints. The phenomenology lying behind these methods, i. e. tribological activation, sonication, and electromagnetic radiation, and the effect of these processes on hydrogen sorption properties of hydrides are described. These non-usual approaches could boost the capability of the next generation of solid-hydride materials for hydrogen conversion in energy sector, in mobile devices and as hydrogen reservoirs.     

A generalised finite difference scheme based on compact integrated radial basis function for flow in heterogeneous soils

In the present paper, we develop a generalised finite difference approach based on compact integrated radial basis function (CIRBF) stencils for solving highly nonlinear Richards equation governing fluid movement in heterogeneous soils. The proposed CIRBF scheme enjoys a high level of accuracy and a fast convergence rate with grid refinement owing to the combination of the integrated RBF approximation and compact approximation where the spatial derivatives are discretised in terms of the information of neighbouring nodes in a stencil. The CIRBF method is first verified through the solution of ordinary differential equations, 2–D Poisson equations and a Taylor‐Green vortex. Numerical comparisons show that the CIRBF method outperforms some other methods in the literature. The CIRBF method in conjunction with a rational function transformation method and an adaptive time‐stepping scheme is then applied to simulate 1–D and 2–D soil infiltrations effectively. The proposed solutions are more accurate and converge faster than those of the finite different method used with a second‐order central difference scheme. Additionally, the present scheme also takes less time to achieve target accuracy in comparison with the 1D‐IRBF and higher order compact schemes.     

A New Fourier Truncated Regularization Method for Semilinear Backward Parabolic Problems

We study the backward problem for non-linear (semilinear) parabolic partial differential equations in Hilbert spaces. The problem is severely ill-posed in the sense of Hadamard. Under a weak a priori assumption on the exact solution, we propose a new Fourier truncated regularization method for stabilising the ill-posed problem. In comparison with previous studies on solving the nonlinear backward problem, our method shows a significant improvement.     

Application of Neumann–Kopp rule for the estimation of heat capacity of mixed oxides

The empirical Neumann–Kopp rule (NKR) for the estimation of temperature dependence of heat capacity of mixed oxide is analyzed. NKR gives a reasonable estimate of C_pm for most mixed oxides around room temperature, but at both low and high temperatures the accuracy of the estimate is substantially lowered. At very low temperatures, the validity of NKR is shown to be predominantly determined by the relation between the characteristic Debye and Einstein temperatures of a mixed oxide and its constituents. At high temperatures, the correlation between their molar volumes, volume expansion coefficients and compressibilities takes the dominance. In cases where the formation of a mixed oxide is not accompanied by any volume change, the difference between dilatation contributions to heat capacity of a mixed oxide and its constituents is exclusively negative. It turns out that in the high-temperature range, where the contribution of harmonic lattice vibrations approached the 3NR limit, Δ_oxC_p assumes negative values. For more complex oxides whose heat capacity has contributions from terms such as magnetic ordering, electronic excitations, the applicability of NKR is only restricted to lattice and dilatation terms.     

Diversity of the surface properties of Lactococci and consequences on adhesion to food components

Bacteria possess surface properties, related to their charge, hydrophobicity and Lewis acid/base characteristics, that are involved in the attachment processes of microorganisms to surfaces. Fermentation bulks and food matrixes are complex heterogeneous media containing various components with different physicochemical characteristics. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether (i) bacteria present in a food matrix, interacted physicochemically at their surface level with the other constituents and (ii) the diversity of bacterial surface properties could result in a diversity of microbial adhesion to components and thus in a diversity of tolerance to toxic compounds. The surface properties of 20 lactic acid bacteria were characterized by the MATS method showing their relatively hydrophilic and various basic characteristics. The results obtained from a set of representative strains showed that (i) the strains with higher affinity for apolar solvents adsorbed more to lipids and hydrophobic compounds, (ii) the more the strains adsorbed to a toxic solvent, the less they were tolerant to this solvent. A diversity of bacterial surface properties was observed for the strains in the same species showing the importance of choosing bacteria according to their surface properties in function of technological objectives.     

Multireference configuration interaction studies on the ground and excited states of N2O2: the potential energy curves of N2O2 along N-N distance

In this paper, the ground and excited states of N2O2 were studied at the multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) level of theory with Dunning's [J. Chem. Phys. 90, 1007 (1985); 96, 6796 (1992)] correlation consistent basis sets augo-cc-pVDZ and aug-cc-pVTZ. The geometry optimizations were performed for the ground state of N2O2. The vertical excitation energies and transition moments were calculated for the low-lying singlet states of N2O2 including the lowest three 1A1 states, two 1B1 states, one 1B2 state, and two 1A2 states at the MRCI level of theory with Dunning's correlation consistent basis sets aug-cc-pVDZ, aug-cc-pVTZ, and aug-cc-pVQZ. Furthermore, for the first time, the potential energy curves were calculated at the complete active space self-consistent-field and MRCI levels of theory for as many as 12 N2O2 singlet electronic states along the N-N distance. The dissociation asymptotes of these 12 N2O2 singlet electronic states were discussed.