An Augmented Lagrangian Approach for Distributed Supply Chain Planning for Multiple Companies

Planning coordination for multiple companies has received much attention from viewpoints of global supply chain management. In practical situations, a plausible plan for multiple companies should be created by mutual negotiation and coordination without sharing such confidential information as inventory costs, setup costs, and due date penalties for each company. In this paper, we propose a framework for distributed optimization of supply chain planning using an augmented Lagrangian decomposition and coordination approach. A feature of the proposed method is that it can derive a near-optimal solution without requiring all of the information. The proposed method is applied to supply chain planning problems for a petroleum complex, and a midterm planning problem for multiple companies. Computational experiments demonstrate that the average gap between a solution derived by the proposed method and the optimal solution is within 3% of the performance index, even though only local information is used to derive a solution for each company.     

Pulmonary microcirculation during pulsatile and non pulsatile perfusion

During development of a rotary blood pump as an assist device, the efficacy of non pulsatile perfusion to the end organ has to be verified. However, there are few evaluations of two different perfusion mechanisms through the tissue microcirculation. In this study, the pulmonary microcirculation was analyzed by vital microscopic observation. Wistar rats weighing 400-500 g were anesthetized and ventilated by a respirator. After establishing right heart bypass from the right atrium to the pulmonary artery using a roller pump, the pulmonary microcirculation was observed during intravenous infusion of bovine albumin tagged with fluorescein isothiocyanate. The images were recorded on a videotape through an ultra-sensitive SIT TV camera. Initially, the pulmonary circulation was pulsatile, produced by the native heart, and the pulmonary capillary network was evenly perfused by the blood. After starting the pump, the flow became non pulsatile and the distribution of capillary perfusion was displaced to the short circuit connecting the pulmonary arterioles and venules. Flow distribution during non pulsatile perfusion was heterogeneous compared with pulsatile perfusion. This result suggests that non pulsatile flow may lead to the deterioration of function. Further investigation is necessary to evaluate the relationship between the microcirculation and organ function.     

Bacterially Secretable Single-Chain Tandem Macrocyclic Peptides for High Affinity and Inhibitory Activity

The inhibition of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) is an effective approach for therapy. Owing to their large binding surface areas to target proteins, macrocyclic peptides are suitable molecules for PPI inhibition. In this study, we developed single-chain tandem macrocyclic peptides (STaMPtides) that inhibits the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor 2 (VEGFR2). They were artificially designed to comprise two different VEGFR2-binding macrocyclic peptides linked in tandem by peptide linkers and secreted by Corynebacterium glutamicum. Most potent VEGFR2-inhibitory STaMPtides with length-optimized linkers exhibited >1000 times stronger inhibitory activity than their parental monomeric peptides, possibly due to the avidity effect of heterodimerization. Our approach of using STaMPtides for PPI inhibition may be used to inhibit other extracellular factors, such as growth factors and cytokines.     

Spatio-temporal distributions of accumulated charge density in atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharges

The effect of the secondary electron emission coefficient on accumulated charge density distributions in atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharges have been simulated using two-dimensional fluid model. Spatio-temporal distributions of accumulated charge density on each side of the dielectric have been examined. The differences of conventional waveforms of accumulated charge density and the simulated results were clarified. And when the dielectrics were negatively accumulated, charges were uniformly accumulated, while positive charges were not. Randomness of streamers' occurrence, and self-organized structures have been also examined by the accumulated charge distributions.