High-Level Relay Hybrid Metaheuristic Method for Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

This paper presents an efficient hybrid metaheuristic solution for multi-depot vehicle routing with time windows (MD-VRPTW). MD-VRPTW involves the routing of a set of vehicles with limited capacity from a set of depots to a set of geographically dispersed customers with known demands and predefined time windows. The present work aims at using a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm in the class of High-Level Relay Hybrid (HRH) which works in three levels and uses an efficient genetic algorithm as the main optimization algorithm and tabu search as an improvement method. In the genetic algorithm various heuristics incorporate local exploitation in the evolutionary search. An operator deletion- retrieval strategy is executed which shows the efficiency of the inner working of the proposed method. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve the problems of the standard Cordeau??s Instances. Results show that proposed approach is quite effective, as it provides solutions that are competitive with the best known in the literature.     

Establishing an Iranian medical laboratory standard based on ISO 15189

To strengthen clinical laboratories’ capabilities, the Reference Health Laboratory (RHL) of the Ministry of Health decided to compile a national professional laboratory standard to be followed by all medical laboratories in the country. Providing a national laboratory standard, as approved criteria for competency assessment, is also essential for establishment of a national accreditation system for medical laboratories. ISO 15189 addresses different processes and activities in a medical laboratory, but considering the local situation and limitations in the country it was not feasible to implement all the requirements of ISO 15189 at once in laboratories in different sectors and in different provinces of the country. For this reason, the RHL decided to define and publish the national standard, as minimum quality requirements that could be mandatory for all clinical laboratories throughout the country. After conducting a countrywide situation analysis, a national standard was composed by RHL expert committees and officially announced in September 2007. The main reference of this standard was ISO 15189:2007, although some important technical details were added to it from other credible references, such as WHO documents and CLSI guidelines. In this study, the Iranian national standard is compared to ISO 15189:2007 in terms of format and content in order to show how an international standard was localized for compiling a national standard.     

Rational design of biomimetic molecularly imprinted materials: theoretical and computational strategies for guiding nanoscale structured polymer development

In principle, molecularly imprinted polymer science and technology provides a means for ready access to nano-structured polymeric materials of predetermined selectivity. The versatility of the technique has brought it to the attention of many working with the development of nanomaterials with biological or biomimetic properties for use as therapeutics or in medical devices. Nonetheless, the further evolution of the field necessitates the development of robust predictive tools capable of handling the complexity of molecular imprinting systems. The rapid growth in computer power and software over the past decade has opened new possibilities for simulating aspects of the complex molecular imprinting process. We present here a survey of the current status of the use of in silico-based approaches to aspects of molecular imprinting. Finally, we highlight areas where ongoing and future efforts should yield information critical to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms sufficient to permit the rational design of molecularly imprinted polymers.     

Chemical vapor deposition synthesis of tunable unsubstituted polythiophene

Despite having exceptional electroactive properties, applications of unsubstituted polythiophene (PTh) have been limited due to its insolubility. To overcome this challenge, we have employed oxidative chemical vapor deposition (oCVD) as a unique liquid-free technique to enable the oxidative polymerization of PTh using thiophene as the starting monomer and vanadium oxytrichloride as an effective vaporizable oxidant initiator. Vibrational and phototelectron spectroscopy indicated the formation of unsubstituted polythiophene. Cyclic voltammetry revealed its electrochromic behavior in solution. Significantly, polymer conjugation length and electrical conductivity can be tuned by controlling oCVD process variables. Polymerization is found to be adsorption-limited, so by providing sufficient monomer and limiting the amount of initiator at the growth surface, PTh is believed to be formed through α-α thiophene linkages.     

Investigation of Sustained BMP Delivery in the Prevention of Medication‐Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (MRONJ) in a Rat Model

Medication‐related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) poses an ongoing challenge for clinicians and researchers. Currently, there is a lack of preventative measures available for at‐risk patients undergoing tooth extractions, especially those with prior bisphosphonate treatment due to osteoporosis or bone metastasis diagnoses. Here, these issues are addressed using a preventative tissue engineering strategy against MRONJ development. This study evaluates the efficacy of a poly(ethylene glycol)‐heparin hydrogel as a tool for the delivery of arginylglycylaspartic acid (RGD) and recombinant human bone morphogenic protein‐2 (rhBMP‐2). Three groups of skeletally mature rats each receive two doses of intravenous zoledronic acid prior to surgery and undergo extraction of the right first mandibular molar with gingival closure. Experimental groups either have the sockets left empty, filled with hydrogel minus rhBMP‐2, or filled with hydrogel plus rhBMP‐2. Eight weeks postoperatively specimens are analyzed using radiological, histological, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. µCT analysis shows increased bone formation with hydrogel/rhBMP‐2 delivery compared to the empty socket. Hydrogel‐treated groups display increased presence of osteocytes and increased osteoclastic action compared to the empty sockets. These results represent the first step toward improved delivery of rhBMP‐2 and a potential MRONJ preventative for patients undergoing bisphosphonate treatment.     

Energy harvesting from the secondary resonances of a nonlinear piezoelectric beam under hard harmonic excitation

Meccanica - This paper investigates the dynamical response of a nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester under a hard harmonic excitation and assesses its output power. The system is composed of a...     

Evaluation of the Electrophilicites and Band Gaps of Conductive Polymers: A New Model

It is shown that the obtained hardness and electrophilicity values of the short length oligomers for a heterocyclic conductive polymer from density functional theory method are quadraticly correlated to those obtained from semiempirical method. Therefore these quantities for all oligomers (up to 15 repeating units) are predicted using the obtained quadratic relations. Both of these predicted quantities for different oligomers are fitted to a new exponential model (Y = Y_∞ e^d/n) to estimate the electronic properties for the considered conjugated polymers. The calculated band gaps from this model show better agreement with the reported experimental data than those predicted by the previous models. Because of a wide range of variations, the electrophilicity could be a better index for investigating the doping effect in polymers than the hardness.

     

A Critical Evaluation and Modification of the Padé–Laplace Method for Deconvolution of Viscoelastic Spectra

This paper shows that using the Padé–Laplace (PL) method for deconvolution of multi-exponential functions (stress relaxation of polymers) can produce ill-conditioned systems of equations. Analysis of different sets of generated data points from known multi-exponential functions indicates that by increasing the level of Padé approximants, the condition number of a matrix whose entries are coefficients of a Taylor series in the Laplace space grows rapidly. When higher levels of Padé approximants need to be computed to achieve stable modes for separation of exponentials, the problem of generating matrices with large condition numbers becomes more pronounced. The analysis in this paper discusses the origin of ill-posedness of the PL method and it was shown that ill-posedness may be regularized by reconstructing the system of equations and using singular value decomposition (SVD) for computation of the Padé table. Moreover, it is shown that after regularization, the PL method can deconvolute the exponential decays even when the input parameter of the method is out of its optimal range.     

DFT based insights into reactivity descriptors of encapsulated B<Subscript>24</Subscript>N<Subscript>24</Subscript> nanocages

The purpose of this study is to probe the DFT based chemical reactivity parameter, electrophilicity index as a possible molecular engineering of endohedral BN-nanocages. The structure and electronic properties of endohedral boron nitride nanocages have been investigated as a function of alkali atom inside the nanocage using density functional theory. We have calculated and analyzed basic characteristic related to the reactive behavior, such as HOMO–LUMO band gap, chemical hardness, chemical potential, vertical electron affinity, and vertical ionization potential, as well as the global electrophilicity index, ω(I, A) of the encapsulated B₂₄N₂₄ nanocages. We also investigated the MQZVP basis set effect on total electronic energy of the clusters.     

Is There a Minimum Electrophilicity Principle in Chemical Reactions？

For 25 simple reactions, the changes of the hardness （△η）, polarizability （△α） and electrophilicity index （△ω） and their cube-roots （△η^1/3, △α^1/3, △ω^1/3） were calculated. It is shown that although the Maximum Hardness and Minimum Polarizability Principles are not valid for all reactions, but in most cases △ω^1/3〈0, whereas we always find △ω〈0. Our observation implies to this fact that for those chemical reactions in which the number of moles decreases or at least remains constant, the most stable species （reactants or products） have the lowest sum of electrophilicities. In other words ＂the natural direction of a chemical reaction is toward a state of minimum electrophilicity＂. This fact may be called Minimum Electrophilicity Principle （MEP）.