Combining Meta-Heuristics to Effectively Solve the Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows

The vehicle routing problemswith time windows are challenging deliveryproblems in which instances involving 100customers or more can be difficult to solve.There were many interesting heuristics proposedto handle these problems effectively. In thispaper, we examined two well-knownmeta-heuristics and carefully combined theshort-term and long-term memory-like mechanismsof both methods to achieve better results. Ourprototype was shown to compare favorablyagainst the original search methods and otherrelated search hybrids on the Solomon's testcases. More importantly, our proposal ofintegration opens up many exciting directionsfor further investigation.     

Influence of the self-buffer layer on ZnO film grown by atmospheric metal organic chemical vapor deposition

ZnO films with and without a self-buffer layer were grown on c-plane sapphire substrates by atmospheric metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The influence of the buffer layer thickness, annealing temperature and annealing time on ZnO films has been investigated. The full width at half maximum of the ω-rocking curve of the optimized self-buffer layer sample is only 395 arc sec. Its surface is composed of regular columnar hexagons. After the buffer layer was introduced, the A₁ longitudinal mode peak at 576 cm^− 1, related to the defects, disappears in Raman spectra. For the photoluminescence, besides the strong donor binding exciton peak at 3.3564 eV, an ionized donor binding exciton and a free exciton peak is respectively observed at 3.3673 and 3.3756 eV at the high-energy side in the spectrum of the sample with the buffer layer.     

Equality of the energy and group velocities of bulk acoustic waves in piezoelectric media

The equality of the energy and group velocities of bulk acoustic waves in a lossless piezoelectric medium is demonstrated, with the energy velocity defined from the generalized energy density and the generalized Poynting vector.     

Implicit category learning performance predicts rate of cognitive decline in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease.

Nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are impaired in learning to categorize simple perceptual stimuli when category membership is defined by a nonlinear relationship between stimulus dimensions but not when the relationship is linear (J. V. Filoteo, W. T. Maddox, D. P. Salmon, & D. D. Song, 2005). In the present study, the authors examined whether performance in either of these 2 category learning conditions was predictive of global cognitive decline following a mean of 1.6 years since the time patients were 1st seen. Results indicated that final block accuracy in the nonlinear condition, but not the linear condition, predicted global cognitive decline. Performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) did not significantly predict global cognitive decline, although there was a trend for this to be the case. In addition, the association between nonlinear category learning and global cognitive decline was not impacted by patients' performance on the WCST. Results suggest that nonlinear category learning predicts cognitive decline in nondemented patients with PD and that nonlinear category learning and WCST performances may provide independent measures of integrity of the posterior and anterior caudate, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Direct interaction of the KRAB/Cys2-His2 zinc finger protein ZNF74 with a hyperphosphorylated form of the RNA polymerase II largest subunit

We previously identified ZNF74 as a developmentally expressed gene commonly deleted in DiGeorge syndrome. ZNF74 encodes an RNA-binding protein tightly associated with the nuclear matrix and belongs to a large subfamily of Cys2-His2 zinc finger proteins containing a KRAB (Kruppel-associated box) repressor motif. We now report on the multifunctionality of the zinc finger domain of ZNF74. This nucleic acid binding domain is shown here to function as a nuclear matrix targeting sequence and to be involved in protein-protein interaction. By far-Western analysis and coimmunoprecipitation studies, we demonstrate that ZNF74 interacts, via its zinc finger domain, with the hyperphosphorylated largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (pol IIo) but not with the hypophosphorylated form. The importance of the phosphorylation in this interaction is supported by the observation that phosphatase treatment inhibits ZNF74 binding. Double immunofluorescence experiments indicate that ZNF74 colocalizes with the pol IIo and the SC35 splicing factor in irregularly shaped subnuclear domains. Thus, ZNF74 sublocalization in nuclear domains enriched in pre-mRNA maturating factors, its RNA binding activity, and its direct phosphodependent interaction with the pol IIo, a form of the RNA polymerase functionally associated with pre- mRNA processing, suggest a role for this member of the KRAB multifinger protein family in RNA processing.     

Effects of task instructions and brief breaks on brainstorming.

Experiment 1 examined the effects of additional brainstorming rules for groups and looked at whether the presence of a facilitator who actively enforced the rules of brainstorming was beneficial. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether the additional rules and brief breaks were beneficial to individual brainwriters and electronic brainstormers working alone. Clear benefits of the additional rules were found under a variety of conditions. The presence of a facilitator to enforce the rules enhanced the efficiency of idea generation (number of words used to express ideas) but not the number of ideas generated. There appears to be a small benefit to taking breaks in brainwriting sessions, but the benefit of breaks is reduced or eliminated in electronic brainstorming sessions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Duration modelling and evaluation for Arabic statistical parametric speech synthesis

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Sound duration is responsible for rhythm and speech rate. Furthermore, in some languages phoneme length is an important phonetic and prosodic factor. For...     

Enforcing kernel constraints by hardware-assisted virtualization

This article deals with kernel security protection. We propose a characterization of malicious kernel-targeted actions, based on how the way they act to corrupt the kernel. Then, we discuss security measures able to counter such attacks. We finally expose our approach based on hardware-virtualization that is partially implemented into our demonstrator Hytux, which is inspired from bluepill (Rutkowska in subverting vista kernel for fun and profit. In: Black Hat in Las Vegas, 2006), a malware that installs itself as a lightweight hypervisor—on a hardware-virtualization compliant CPU—and puts a running Microsoft Windows Operating System into a virtual machine. However, in contrast with bluepill, Hytux is a lightweight hypervisor that implements protection mechanisms in a more privileged mode than the Linux kernel.     

Non-local adaptive structure tensors : Application to anisotropic diffusion and shock filtering

Structure tensors are used in several PDE-based methods to estimate information on the local structure in the image, such as edge orientation. They have become a common tool in many image processing applications. To integrate the local data information, the structure tensor is based on a local regularization of a tensorial product. In this paper, we propose a new regularization model based on the non-local properties of the tensor product. The resulting non-local structure tensor is effective in the restitution of the non homogeneity of the local orientation of the structures. It is particularly efficient in texture regions where patches repeat non locally. The new tensor regularization also offers the advantage of automatically adapting the smoothing parameter to the local structures of the tensor product. Finally, we explain how this new adaptive structure tensor can be plugged into two PDEs: an anisotropic diffusion and a shock filter. Comparisons with other tensor regularization methods and other PDEs demonstrate the clear advantage of using the non-local structure tensor.