Value of information in remanufacturing complex products

Remanufacturing facilities usually face a trade-off between limited information about remanufacturing yields and potentially long supplier lead times. To improve production performance, these firms may attempt to acquire more timely and accurate information about remanufacturing yields or alternatively, to reduce the lead times of purchased parts. We develop four decision-making models to evaluate the impact of yield information and supplier lead time on manufacturing costs. We identify the operating conditions under which these capabilities are valuable, along with their relative impact on facility performance. Each model is formulated as an infinite horizon, stochastic dynamic program (Markov decision process). Our results indicate that the yield information is generally quite valuable, while investments in supplier responsiveness provide trivial returns to products with few parts. However, as product complexity increases with large number of target parts, the value of short lead times increases.     

Synthesis and Properties of Photoisomerizable Derivatives of Isosorbide and Their Use in Cholesteric Filters

This paper describes the synthesis of photoisomerizable derivatives of isosorbide. These derivatives contain a stilbene or cinnamate moiety and can therefore be used as photoisomerizable chiral compounds in cholesteric liquid‐crystalline mixtures. The reflection wavelength of cholesteric layers made from these mixtures is increased by UV irradiation due to the fact that the Z‐isomers of these derivatives exhibit a lower helical twisting power than the corresponding E‐isomers. The cinnamate derivatives are very suitable for use in cholesteric color filters that find application in liquid‐crystal displays.     

Immunoglobulin A levels in southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) milk during the suckling period

Immunoglobulin A (IgA) levels in milk samples from southern elephant seals at King George Island, Antarctica are reported. IgA levels were determined throughout the suckling period (approximately 23 days). The IgA concentration in southern elephant seal milk was lower than in other mammals and, unlike most mammalian milk, was not high during early lactation. There was not a definite pattern in IgA levels, which fluctuated within narrow limits throughout the suckling period (mean +/- SD, 30.81 +/- 6.38 mg IgA/100 g milk). If IgG was present, its level was too low to be detected by the method used. This is the first evidence in Southern elephant seal of the possibility of transmission of passive immunity after birth involving secretion of IgA in the milk.     

Tau Exon 10 Inclusion by PrPC through Downregulating GSK3β Activity

Tau protein is largely responsible for tauopathies, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where it accumulates in the brain as insoluble aggregates. Tau mRNA is regulated by alternative splicing, and inclusion or exclusion of exon 10 gives rise to the 3R and 4R isoforms respectively, whose balance is physiologically regulated. In this sense, one of the several factors that regulate alternative splicing of tau is GSK3β, whose activity is inhibited by the cellular prion protein (PrP^C), which has different physiological functions in neuroprotection and neuronal differentiation. Moreover, a relationship between PrP^C and tau expression levels has been reported during AD evolution. For this reason, in this study we aimed to analyze the role of PrP^C and the implication of GSK3β in the regulation of tau exon 10 alternative splicing. We used AD human samples and mouse models of PrP^C ablation and tau overexpression. In addition, we used primary neuronal cultures to develop functional studies. Our results revealed a paralleled association between PrP^C expression and tau 4R isoforms in all models analyzed. In this sense, reduction or ablation of PrP^C levels induces an increase in tau 3R/4R balance. More relevantly, our data points to GSK3β activity downstream from PrP^C in this phenomenon. Our results indicate that PrP^C plays a role in tau exon 10 inclusion through the inhibitory capacity of GSK3β.     

Porous poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate) hydrogels prepared by radical polymerisation with methanol as diluent

Dynamic-mechanical and water sorption properties of porous and non-porous hydrogels have been studied as a function of their porosity and crosslinking density. Porous hydrogels with different crosslinking densities were prepared by co-polymerisation of 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate and ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate in solution in methanol. Pores were formed due to the segregation of the solvent from the polymer network during the polymerisation process. The porosity of the samples was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The pores collapse during the drying process after polymerisation but they reopen when the xerogel is immersed in liquid water. Bulk polymer networks with varying crosslinking densities were also synthesised and used as a reference in the analysis of the porous hydrogels. Water sorption from the gas phase and from the liquid phase was studied by means of equilibrium sorption isotherms and immersion experiments, respectively. Dynamic-mechanical spectroscopy conducted on the xerogels shows that the elastic modulus in the rubber-like state highly depends on the amount of solvent used in the polymerisation what is attributed to the presence of discontinuity surfaces in the xerogel although the pores are closed.     

A mixed integer programming approach to multi-skilled workforce scheduling

The potential benefits of using human resources efficiently in the service sector constitute an incentive for decision makers in this industry to intelligently manage the work shifts of their employees, especially those dealing directly with customers. In the long term, they should attempt to find the right balance between employing as few labor resources as possible and keeping a high level of service. In the short run (e.g., 1 week), however, contracted staff levels cannot be adjusted, and management efforts thus focus on the efficient assignment of shifts and activities to each employee. This article proposes a mixed integer program model that solves the short-term multi-skilled workforce tour scheduling problem, enabling decision makers to simultaneously design workers’ shifts and days off, assign activities to shifts and assign those to employees so as to maximize and balance coverage of a firm’s demand for on-duty staff across multiple activities. Our model is simple enough to be solved with a commercial MIP solver calibrated by default without recurring to complex methodologies, such as extended reformulations and exact and/or heuristic column generation subroutines. A wide computational testing over 1000 randomly generated instances suggests that the model’s solution times are compatible with daily use and that multi-skilling is a significant source of labor flexibility to improve coverage of labor requirements, in particular when such requirements are negatively correlated and part-time workers are a scarce resource.     

Monitoring pH and ORP in a SHARON reactor

This paper analyses the valuable information provided by the on-line measurements of pH and oxidation reduction potential (ORP) in a continuous single high ammonia removal over nitrite (SHARON) reactor. A laboratory-scale SHARON reactor equipped with pH, ORP, electric conductivity and dissolved oxygen (DO) probes has been operated for more than one year. Nitrogen removal over nitrite has been achieved by adding methanol at the beginning of anoxic stages. Time evolution of pH and ORP along each cycle allows identifying the decrease in nitritation rate when ammonia is consumed during the aerobic phase and the end of the denitrification process during the anoxic phase. Therefore, monitoring pH and ORP can be used to develop a real-time control system aimed at optimizing the length of both aerobic and anoxic stages. Real-time control of methanol addition can be carried out by using the information provided by these probes: excessive methanol addition in the anoxic stage is clearly detected in the ORP profile of the following aerobic phase, while a deficit of methanol is detected in both pH and ORP profiles of that anoxic phase. Moreover, other valuable information such as the amount of ammonia nitrified, failures in DO measurements, excessive stirring during the anoxic stage and methanol dosage in the aerobic phase was also provided by the pH and ORP profiles.     

Recombinant human erythrocyte cytochrome b5

The gene encoding the human erythrocyte form of cytochrome b5 (97 residues in length) has been prepared by mutagenesis of an expression vector encoding lipase-solubilized bovine liver microsomal cytochrome b5 (93 residues in length) (Funk et al., 1990). Efficient expression of this gene in Escherichia coli has provided the first opportunity to obtain this protein in quantities sufficient for physical and functional characterization. Comparison of the erythrocytic cytochrome with the trypsin-solubilized bovine liver cytochrome b5 by potentiometric titration indicates that the principal electrostatic difference between the two proteins results from two additional His residues present in the human erythrocytic protein. The midpoint reduction potential of this protein determined by direct electrochemistry is -9 +/- 2 mV vs SHE at pH 7.0 (mu = 0.10 M, 25.0 degrees C), and this value varies with pH in a fashion that is consistent with the presence of a single ionizable group that changes pKa from 6.0 +/- 0.1 in the ferricytochrome to 6.3 +/- 0.1 in the ferrocytochrome with delta H degrees = -3.2 +/- 0.1 kcal/mol and delta S degrees = -11.5 +/- 0.3 eu (pH 7.0, mu = 0.10). The 1D 1H NMR spectrum of the erythrocytic ferricytochrome indicates that 90% of the protein binds heme in the "major" orientation and 10% of the protein binds heme in the "minor" orientation (pH 7.0, 25 degrees C) with delta H degrees = -2.9 +/- 0.3 kcal/mol and delta S degrees = -5.4 +/- 0.9 eu for this equilibrium.     

A generic framework for median graph computation based on a recursive embedding approach

The median graph has been shown to be a good choice to obtain a representative of a set of graphs. However, its computation is a complex problem. Recently, graph embedding into vector spaces has been proposed to obtain approximations of the median graph. The problem with such an approach is how to go from a point in the vector space back to a graph in the graph space. The main contribution of this paper is the generalization of this previous method, proposing a generic recursive procedure that permits to recover the graph corresponding to a point in the vector space, introducing only the amount of approximation inherent to the use of graph matching algorithms. In order to evaluate the proposed method, we compare it with the set median and with the other state-of-the-art embedding-based methods for the median graph computation. The experiments are carried out using four different databases (one semi-artificial and three containing real-world data). Results show that with the proposed approach we can obtain better medians, in terms of the sum of distances to the training graphs, than with the previous existing methods.