Swarm intelligence-based hyper-heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with prioritized customers

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial optimization management problem that seeks the optimal set of routes traversed by a vehicle to deliver products to customers. A recognized problem in this domain is to serve ‘prioritized’ customers in the shortest possible time where customers with known demands are supplied by one or several depots. This problem is known as the Vehicle Routing with Prioritized Customers (VRPC). The purpose of this work is to present and compare two artificial intelligence-based novel methods that minimize the traveling distance of vehicles when moving cargo to prioritized customers. Various studies have been conducted regarding this topic; nevertheless, up to now, few studies used the Cuckoo Search-based hyper-heuristic. This paper modifies a classical mathematical model that represents the VRPC, implements and tests an evolutionary Cuckoo Search-based hyper-heuristic, and then compares the results with those of our proposed modified version of the Clarke Wright (CW) algorithm. In this modified version, the CW algorithm serves all customers per their preassigned priorities while covering the needed working hours. The results indicate that the solution selected by the Cuckoo Search-based hyper-heuristic outperformed the modified Clarke Wright algorithm while taking into consideration the customers’ priority and demands and the vehicle capacity.

     

McMullen's conditions and some lower bounds for general convex polytopes

We give a lower bound for the number of vertices of a generald-dimensional polytope with a given numberm ofi-faces for eachi = 0,..., d/2 – 1. The tightness of those bounds is proved using McMullen's conditions. Form greater than a small constant, those lower bounds are attained by simpliciali-neighbourly polytopes.     

The μSR facilities at PSI

TheSR Facility Instruments presently available at PSI and the envisaged medium- and long-term developments are presented. The plans focus on further upgrades of the existing instruments and the development of new techniques using the very high fluxes becoming available at PSI, in particular the setup of a beamline with a fast kicker for muons on request (MORE) and the development of very low energy muon beams.     

How to improve transmissive optics in the very far infrared?

Conclusion We have presented the possibility to make optical coatings on quartz in the FIR and we have got a transmission coefficient as high as 97% at room temperature. It will rise probably close to 100% at liquid helium temperature where the quartz two-phonon difference processes are frozen. The use of polyethylene or TPX is also possible to make plates and lenses. The reflectivity losses are smaller because the refractive index is much smaller, but they cannot be further reduced by any coating because there is no transparent material with n1.2 in the FIR. These lenses are very useful in the FIR (except around 60 cm^–1 if they are made of polyethylene). TPX is quite transparent over the whole FIR range, and also in the visible with nearly the same refractive index as in the FIR. Alignments can be made with visible light, and still work in the FIR.     

Dynamics of an enzymatic substitution reaction in haloalkane dehalogenase

Reactive flux molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out using a combined QM/MM potential to study the dynamics of the nucleophilic substitution reaction of dichloroethane by a carboxylate group in haloalkane dehalogenase and in water. We found that protein dynamics accelerates the reaction rate by a factor of 2 over the uncatalyzed reaction. Compared to the thermodynamic effect in barrier reduction, protein dynamic contribution is relatively small. However, analyses of the friction kernel reveal that the origins of the reaction dynamics in water and in the enzyme are different. In aqueous solution, there is significant electrostatic solvation effect, which is reflected by the slow reorganization relaxation of the solvent. On the other hand, there is no strong electrostatic coupling in the enzyme and the major effect on reaction coordinate motion is intramolecular energy relaxation.     

Direct, two-step synthetic pathway to novel dibenzo[a,c]phenanthridines

Novel dibenzo[a,c]phenanthridines are prepared regioselectively by the application of a straightforward synthetic pathway, starting from new 3,4-diaryl- and 3,4-dihydro-3,4-diarylisoquinolines prepared via Ritter-type heterocyclization and the more classical two-step reductive amination/Bischler-Napieralski cyclization of triarylethanones, respectively. A comparative study of nonphenolic oxidative coupling methodologies provides a highly efficient procedure, based on the hypervalent iodine reagent phenyliodine(III) bis(trifluoroacetate) (PIFA), to accomplish the final coupling step.     

Direct probing of zwitterion formation in unsolvated peptides

Molecular beam electric deflection measurements have been used to determine electric susceptibilities for small unsolvated alanine-based peptides. The electric susceptibility provides information about the charge distribution within the peptide and can be used to distinguish between zwitterionic and canonical forms. Measured electric susceptibilities for WAn peptides (n = 1-5) are similar to those for capped Ac-WAn-NH2 peptides (which cannot form zwitterions). Susceptibilities calculated using a simulated tempering-based approach are substantially larger for the zwitterionic form than for the canonical form. The measured susceptibilities are in good agreement with those calculated for the canonical form. For the larger peptides, the lowest potential energy structure found in the simulations is hairpin-like, while the lowest free energy structure found at room temperature is extended. The zwitterionic form is constrained by intramolecular interactions which make it entropically unfavorable.     

Relaxometric study of copper [15]metallacrown-5 gadolinium complexes derived from alpha-aminohydroxamic acids

Proton nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion (NMRD) profiles were recorded between 0.24 mT and 1.4 T for lanthanum(III)- and gadolinium(III)-containing [15]metallacrown-5 complexes derived from alpha-aminohydroxamic acids and with copper(II) as the ring metal. The influence of the different R-groups on the proton relaxivity was investigated, and a linear relationship between the relaxivity and the molecular mass of the metallacrown complex was found. The selectivity of the metallacrown complexes was tested by transmetalation experiments with zinc(II) ions. The crystal structure of the copper [15]metallacrown-5 gadolinium complex with glycine hydroximate ligands is reported.