Strategies for protecting supply chain networks against facility and transportation disruptions: an improved Benders decomposition approach

Disruptions rarely occur in supply chains, but their negative financial and technical impacts make the recovery process very slow. In this paper, we propose a capacitated supply chain network design (SCND) model under random disruptions both in facility and transportation, which seeks to determine the optimal location and types of distribution centers (DC) and also the best plan to assign customers to each opened DC. Unlike other studies in the extent literature, we use new concepts of reliability to model the strategic behavior of DCs and customers at the network: (1) Failure of DCs might be partial, i.e. a disrupted DC might still be able to serve with a portion of its initial capacity (2) The lost capacity of a disrupted DC shall be provided from a non-disrupted one and (3) The lost capacity fraction of a disrupted DC depends on its initial investment amount in the design phase. In order to solve the proposed model optimally, a modified version of Benders’ Decomposition (BD) is applied. This modification tackles the difficulties of the BD’s master problem (MP), which ultimately improves the solution time of BD significantly. The classical BD approach results in low density cuts in some cases, Covering Cut Bundle (CCB) generation addresses this issue by generating a bundle of cuts instead of a single cut, which could cover more decision variables of the MP. Our inspiration to improve the CCB generation led to a new method, namely Maximum Density Cut (MDC) generation. MDC is based on the observation that in some cases CCB generation is cumbersome to solve in order to cover all decision variables of the MP rather than to cover part of them. Thus the MDC method generates a cut to cover the remaining decision variables which are not covered by CCB. Numerical experiments demonstrate the practicability of the proposed model to be promising in the SCND area, also the modified BD approach decreases the number of BD iterations and improves the CPU times, significantly.     

A CONVENIENT METHOD FOR THE SYNTHESIS OF PHOSPHOROTHIOATES AND THEIR ANTICHOLINESTERASE ACTIVITIES

A simple, efficient, and general method has been developed for the synthesis of phosphorothioates through a one-pot reaction of alkyl halides with the mixture of diethyl phosphite in the presence of NH ₄ OAc/S/CaO under solvent–free conditions. The anticholinesterase activities of eight different phosphorothioates were investigated on acetylcholinesterase from electric eel.     

Aromatization of 1,4-Dihydropyridines Under Mild and Heterogeneous Conditions

A combination of Mg(HSO₄)₂ and NaNO₂ in the presence of wet SiO₂ was used as an effective oxidizing agent for the oxidation of dihydropyridines to their corresponding pyridine derivatives at room temperature with moderate to excellent yields.     

Reliable data approximation in wireless sensor network

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is highly budgeted by energy since sensor nodes are mostly battery-powered and deployed in hard-to-reach area for prolonged duration. Moreover radio communication is very expensive for WSN. At the same time, a substantial portion WSN applications require periodic data collection. In this paper we investigate this issue in depth and present a solution architecture: 2PDA, that eliminates repeated transmission. The solution is founded upon temporal linear correlation among sensor data. Instead of sending each data packet we model them using method of least square that exploits temporal correlation among sensor data. 2PDA observes sensor data and performs operation parameterized by application-precision. After successful computation only the parameters of the model are sent over the radio to the application-end or sink. 2PDA was implemented in TinyOS. Implementation showed a significant improvement (i.e. 80%) for the node’s life-time. Rigorous numerical analysis was done on various sensor data which indicated its modest efficiency under different scenario. Effects of various parameters such as type of sensory information, time and place of data collection were assessed. Finally a network simulation was carried out to evaluate its scalability.     

Semi-analytic Performance of a Multiaccess MIMO Scheme Using Precoding Vectors

This paper addresses the problem of transmitting data to multiple mobile stations using a decode-and-forward strategy. Precoding vectors are used in relays to cancel out multiple access interference at the mobile stations. The diversity gain of the system has been analytically calculated for the case of two mobile stations. The system performance for arbitrary number of mobile stations is calculated using a semi analytic approach. In this approach the distribution of signal to noise ratio is approximated by a mixture of Nakagami laws using an Expectation-Maximization algorithm. Then the symbol error probability of this mixture is analytically calculated. Simulations confirm the theoretical results showing that the full diversity advantage can be obtained, which is the product of the number of antennas at each relay by the number of relays minus the total number of system constraints.     

Kinetic study of carbothermal reduction of zirconia under vacuum condition

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - In this research, formation mechanism and kinetics of vacuum carbothermal synthesis of zirconium carbide using zirconium acetate and sucrose are...     

Quantitative evaluation of optimal imaging parameters for single-cell detection in MRI using simulation

Super-paramagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles are actively investigated to enhance disease detection through molecular imaging using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Detection of the cells labeled by SPIO depends on the MRI protocols and pulse sequence parameters that can be optimized. To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the image acquisition methods and to obtain optimal imaging parameters for single-cell detection, we further developed an MRI simulator. The simulator models an object (tissue) at a microscopic level to evaluate effects of spatial distribution and concentration of nanoparticles on the resulting image. In this study, the simulator was used to evaluate and compare imaging of the labeled cells by the gradient-echo (GE), true-FISP [fast imaging employing steady-state acquisition (FIESTA)] and echo-planar imaging (EPI) pulse sequences. Effects of the imaging and object parameters, such as field strength, imaging protocol and pulse sequence parameters, imaging resolution, cell iron load, position of SPIO within the voxel and cell division within the voxel, were investigated in the work. The results suggest that true-FISP has the highest sensitivity for single-cell detection by MRI.     

OH−/Silica-Mediated One-Pot Synthesis of Dithiocarbamates Under Solvent-Free Conditions

Abstract

An efficient, versatile, and environmentally benign method for the synthesis of dithiocarbamates under solvent-free conditions is reported. The Michael addition of electron-deficient alkenes with alkyl or aryl amines and CS₂ in the presence of OH^?/silica in a one-pot three-component reaction protocol gave the corresponding dithiocarbamates in good to excellent yields. This method is suitable for a wide range of amines and a variety of Michael acceptors in solvent-free conditions. The results of the present work show the desired products in excellent yields.