Production of high purity proteins by elution of individual fractions from two-dimensional gels.

Results are presented on the production of purified myocardial proteins from two-dimensional (2-D) gels. Proteins were fixed in a native condition using potassium acetate and then eluted into an aqueous solution. Homogeneous tropomyosin and myosin light chain fractions and a number of nonidentified myocardial proteins present on 2-D gels were obtained.     

Single machine group scheduling with ordered criteria

The single machine group scheduling problem is considered. Jobs are classified into several groups on the basis of group technology, i.e. jobs of the same group have to be processed jointly. A machine set-up time independent of the group sequence is needed between each two consecutive groups. A schedule specifies the sequence of groups and the sequence of jobs in each group. The quality of a schedule is measured by the criteriaF ₁, ...,F _m ordered by their relative importance. The objective is to minimize the least important criterionF _m subject to the schedule being optimal with respect to the more important criterionF _m–1 which is minimized on the set of schedules minimizing criterionF _m–2 and so on. The most important criterion isF ₁, which is minimized on the set of all feasible schedules. An approach to solve this multicriterion problem in polynomial time is presented if functionsF ₁, ...,F _m have special properties. The total weighted completion time and the total weighted exponential time are the examples of functionsF ₁, ...,F _m–1 and the maximum cost is an example of functionF _m for which our approach can be applied.The research of the authors was partially supported by a KBN Grant No. 3 P 406 003 05, the Fundamental Research Fund of Belarus, Project N 60-242, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Project Schema, respectively. The paper was completed while the first author was visiting the University of Melbourne.     

Single Supplier Scheduling for Multiple Deliveries

The problem of scheduling the production and delivery of a supplier to feed the production of F manufacturers is studied. The orders fulfilled by the supplier are delivered to the manufacturers in batches of the same size. The supplier's production line has to be set up whenever it switches from processing an order of one manufacturer to an order of another manufacturer. The objective is to minimize the total setup cost, subject to maintaining continuous production for all manufacturers. The problem is proved to be NP-hard. It is reduced to a single machine scheduling problem with deadlines and jobs belonging to F part types. An O(NlogF) algorithm, where N is the number of delivery batches, is presented to find a feasible schedule. A dynamic programming algorithm with O(N ^F /F ^F–2) running time is presented to find an optimal schedule. If F=2 and setup costs are unit, an O(N) time algorithm is derived.     

Batching deteriorating items with applications in computer communication and reverse logistics

We study two deterministic scheduling problems that combine batching and deterioration features. In both problems, there is a certain demand for identical good quality items to be produced in batches. In the first problem, each batch is assigned an individual machine that requires a cost and a time to be activated. All the machines are identical, work in parallel, and always produce good quality items. All the items are available at time zero and they deteriorate while waiting for production. Deterioration results in a linear increase of time and cost of production. In the second problem, there is a single machine that produces good quality as well as defective items in batches. Each batch is preceded by a setup time and requires a setup cost. Defective items have to be reworked on the same machine. They deteriorate while waiting for rework. At a time to be decided, the machine switches from production to rework defective items of the current batch. After rework, every defective item has the required good quality. In both problems, the objective is to find batch partitioning such that a linear combination of the production cost and production completion time is minimized. The two problems are observed at computer service providers and also reverse logistics. In computer service providers, machines and items correspond to communication service channels and information transfer tasks, respectively. We reduce both problems to minimizing a function of one variable representing the number of batches. In an optimal solution of either problem, there are at most two different batch sizes. Linear time algorithms are proposed for both problems.     

An FPTAS for a single-item capacitated economic lot-sizing problem with monotone cost structure

We present a fully polynomial time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for a capacitated economic lot-sizing problem with a monotone cost structure. An FPTAS delivers a solution with a given relative error ɛ in time polynomial in the problem size and in 1/ɛ. Such a scheme was developed by van Hoesel and Wagelmans [8] for a capacitated economic lot-sizing problem with monotone concave (convex) production and backlogging cost functions. We omit concavity and convexity restrictions. Furthermore, we take advantage of a straightforward dynamic programming algorithm applied to a rounded problem.     

Batch scheduling of deteriorating reworkables

The problem of scheduling the production of new and recoverable defective items of the same product manufactured on the same facility is studied. Items are processed in batches. Each batch comprises two sub-batches processed consecutively. In the first sub-batch, all the items are newly manufactured. Some of them are of the required good quality and some are defective. The defective items are remanufactured in the second sub-batch. They deteriorate while waiting for rework. This results in increased time and cost for their remanufacturing. All the items in the same sub-batch complete at the same time, which is the completion time of the last item in the sub-batch. Each remanufactured defective item is of the required good quality. It is assumed that the percentage of defective items in each batch is the same. A setup time is required to start batch processing and to switch from manufacturing to remanufacturing. The demands for good quality items over time are given. The objective is to find batch sizes such that the total setup and inventory holding cost is minimized and all the demands are satisfied. Dynamic programming algorithms are presented for the general problem and some important special cases.     

Optimal workforce assignment to operations of a paced assembly line

We study a paced assembly line intended for manufacturing different products. Workers with identical skills perform non-preemptable operations whose assignment to stations is known. Operations assigned to the same station are executed sequentially, and they should follow the given precedence relations. Operations assigned to different stations can be performed in parallel. The operation’s processing time depends on the number of workers performing this operation. The problem consists in assigning workers to operations such that the maximal number of workers employed simultaneously in the assembly line is minimized, the line cycle time is not exceeded and the box constraints specifying the possible number of workers for each operation are not violated. We show that the general problem is NP-hard in the strong sense, develop conventional and randomized heuristics, propose a reduction to a series of feasibility problems, present a MILP model for the feasibility problem, show relation of the feasibility problem to multi-mode project scheduling and multiprocessor scheduling, establish computational complexity of several special cases based on this relation and provide computer experiments with real and simulated data.     

“Product Partition” and related problems of scheduling and systems reliability: Computational complexity and approximation

Problem Product Partition differs from the NP-complete problem Partition in that the addition operation is replaced by the multiplication operation. Furthermore it differs from the NP-complete problem Subset Product in that it does not contain the product value B in its input. We prove that problem Product Partition and several of its modifications are NP-complete in the strong sense. Our results imply the strong NP-hardness of a number of scheduling problems with start-time-dependent job processing times and a problem of designing a reliable system with a series–parallel structure. It should be noticed that the strong NP-hardness of the considered optimization problems does not preclude the existence of a fully polynomial time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for them. We present a simple FPTAS for one of these problems.