Designing delivery districts for the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands

This paper considers the problem of designing districts for vehicle routing problems with stochastic demands. In particular, demands are assumed to be uncertain at the time when the districts are made, and these are revealed only after the districting decisions are determined. Tabu search and multistart heuristics for this stochastic districting problem are developed and compared. Computational results show that tabu search is superior over multistart.     

Extensions of Simple Modules for Sp4(2n) and Suz(2m)

The group of extensions between any two irreducible 2-modularrepresentations of the groups Sp₄ (2ⁿ) and Suz (2^m) is determined.     

LP MOVPE growth of AlGalnP/GalnP and its application to visible laser diodes

High-quality and uniform bulk layers of (Al _x Ga_1–x )_0.5In_0.5P (x=0–0.7) and AlGalnP/GainP quantum wells (QWs) are grown on 2°-off (100) GaAs substrates by low-pressure metal organic vapour phase epitaxy at a low growth rate of 0.3 nm s^-1. The amount of lattice mismatch and the variation of PL peak energy of (Al_0.5Ga_0.5)_0.5In_0.5P on the 50-mm substrate are less than 6×10^-4 and 2 meV, respectively. (Al_0.5Ga_0.5)_0.5In_0.5P/Ga_0.5In_0.5P SQWs show narrow PL spectra even from a 0.6 nm well measured at 20 K. The variation of PL peak energy from (Al_0.5Ga_0.5)_0.5In_0.5P/Ga_0.5In_0.5P MQWs is less than 10 meV. Also, as-cleaved AlGalnP/GalnP lasers fabricated by a three-step MOVPE show a pulsed threshold current of 82 mA at room temperature, output power of 12 mW, and the lasing wavelength at 668.2 nm.     

Crystallographic report: Bis(N‐cyclohexyl,N‐methyldithiocarbamato)zinc(II)

The mononuclear structure of Zn[S₂CN(Me)Cy)]₂ features a tetrahedral zinc center defined by two chelating dithiocarbamate ligands. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Row and Column Removal Theorems for Homomorphisms of Specht Modules and Weyl Modules

We prove a q-analogue of the row and column removal theorems for homomorphisms between Specht modules proved by Fayers and the first author [16]. These results can be considered as complements to James and Donkin’s row and column removal theorems for decomposition numbers of the symmetric and general linear groups. In this paper we consider homomorphisms between the Specht modules of the Hecke algebras of type A and between the Weyl modules of the q-Schur algebra.This research was supported by ARC grant DP0343023. The first author was also supported by a Sesqui Research Fellowship at the University of Sydney.     

A highly sensitive fluorescent immunoassay based on avidin-labeled nanocrystals

Nanocrystals of the fluorogenic precursor fluorescein diacetate (FDA) were applied as labels in order to improve on the assay sensitivity achieved in our previous studies. Each FDA nanocrystal can be converted into ∼2.6×10⁶ fluorescein molecules, which is useful for improving immunoassay sensitivity and limits of detection. NeutrAvidin was simply adsorbed onto the surface of the FDA nanocrystals, which were coated with distearoylglycerophosphoethanolamine (DSPE) modified with amino(poly(ethylene glycol))(PEG(2000)-Amine) as an interface for coupling biomolecules. This can be applied to detect different kinds of analytes that are captured by corresponding biotinylated biomolecules in different bioanalytical applications. The applicability of the NeutrAvidin-labeled nanocrystals was demonstrated in an immunoassay using the labeled avidin–biotin technique. Biotinylated antibody and FDA-labeled avidin were applied to the assay sequentially. The performance was compared with the traditional sandwich-type assay for mouse immunoglobulin G detection. Following the immunoreaction, the nanocrystals were released by hydrolysis and dissolution instigated by adding a large volume of organic solvent/sodium hydroxide mixture. The limit of detection was lower (by a factor of 2.5–21) and the sensitivity was (3.5–30-fold) higher than immunoassays using commercial labeling systems (FITC and peroxidase). This study shows that using fluorescent nanocrystals in combination with the avidin–biotin technique can enhance assay sensitivity and provide a lower limit of detection without requiring long incubation times as in enzyme-based labels.