A new order splitting model with stochastic lead times for deterioration items

In unreliable supply environments, the strategy of pooling lead time risks by splitting replenishment orders among multiple suppliers simultaneously is an attractive sourcing policy that has captured the attention of academic researchers and corporate managers alike. While various assumptions are considered in the models developed, researchers tend to overlook an important inventory category in order splitting models: deteriorating items. In this paper, we study an order splitting policy for a retailer that sells a deteriorating product. The inventory system is modelled as a continuous review system (s, Q) under stochastic lead time. Demand rate per unit time is assumed to be constant over an infinite planning horizon and shortages are backordered completely. We develop two inventory models. In the first model, it is assumed that all the requirements are supplied by only one source, whereas in the second, two suppliers are available. We use sensitivity analysis to determine the situations in which each sourcing policy is the most economic. We then study a real case from the European pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed models. Finally, more promising directions are suggested for future research.     

Monitoring simple linear profiles in the presence of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity

In this paper, monitoring of simple linear profiles is investigated in the presence of nonequality of variances or heteroscedasticity, ie, generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. In this condition, using of the common methods regardless of the heteroscedasticity leads to the fault interpretations. We consider a simple linear profile and assume that there is a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) (1,1) model within the profiles. Here, we particularly focus on Phase II monitoring of simple linear regression. We studied the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity effect, briefly GARCH effect, on the average run length criterion. As the remedial measures, the weighted least squares method to estimate the regression parameters and the heteroscedasticity‐consistent approaches to estimate the covariance matrix of regression parameters, are used to extract the GARCH effect. Two control chart methods namely T² and exponentially weighted moving average 3 are discussed to monitor the simple linear profiles. Their performances are evaluated by using the average run length criterion. Finally, a real case from an industry field is studied.     

Robust Tin‐Based Perovskite Solar Cells with Hybrid Organic Cations to Attain Efficiency Approaching 10%

The stability of a tin‐based perovskite solar cell is a major challenge. Here, hybrid tin‐based perovskite solar cells in a new series that incorporate a nonpolar organic cation, guanidinium (GA⁺), in varied proportions into the formamidinium (FA⁺) tin triiodide perovskite (FASnI₃) crystal structure in the presence of 1% ethylenediammonium diiodide (EDAI₂) as an additive, are reported. The device performance is optimized at a precursor ratio (GAI:FAI) of 20:80 to attain a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.5% when prepared freshly; the efficiencies continuously increase to attain a record PCE of 9.6% after storage in a glove‐box environment for 2000 h. The hybrid perovskite works stably under continuous 1 sun illumination for 1 h and storage in air for 6 days without encapsulation. Such a tin‐based perovskite passes all harsh standard tests, and the efficiency of a fresh device, 8.3%, is certified. The great performance and stability of the device reported herein attains a new milestone for lead‐free perovskite solar cells on a path toward commercial development.     

Concentrations and Source Identification of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Mangrove Sediments from North of Persian Gulf

The concentrations of 16 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) priority polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were quantified in surface sediments from Hormozgan Province mangroves, south of Iran in dry and wet seasons. Sampling stations were selected in Laft and Khamir mangroves with international importance. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons varied from 75.24 ± 11.24 to 581.94 ± 637.39 ng/g dry weight basis. Pollution sources and their contribution for polyaromatic hydrocarbons pollution in sediments of Hormozgan mangroves were appointed based on molecular ratios and statistical methods, including principal components analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression/principal components analysis (PCA/MLR) tests. Both of pyrogenic and petrogenic sources contributed in detected concentrations of PAHs. Contribution percentages of pyrogenic and petrogenic origins were estimated at 73.20 and 26.79%, respectively. Temporal variations showed that sediments contained higher levels of ∑PAHs in wet season than dry time. However, the mean detected ∑PAHs was lower than international quality guidelines; the high concentration of PAHs was found in Laft mangrove, suggesting the presence of PAH polluted localized area.     

Power-aware scoreboard alternatives for multimedia processors

Intel’s XScale which has powered many multimedia applications uses scoreboard to control instruction execution. Scoreboard stalls the pipeline whenever a source operand or functional unit is needed but not available. While waiting for the availability of the resources, the processor accesses the scoreboard every cycle. Such accesses consume energy without contributing to performance. We address this inefficiency by investigating stall behaviour and introduce an adaptive technique to avoid regular access to the scoreboard during stall periods. Our study shows that by using our technique and for the representative subset of MiBench benchmark suite studied here, it is possible to reduce scoreboard energy consumption by up to 33% while maintaining performance cost within 0.25%.     

Fluid and thermal analysis of a microchannel electronics cooler using computational fluid dynamics

Fluid flow and heat transfer of a microchannel electronics cooler is analyzed using computational simulation and experimental validation. The microchannel cooling technique appears to be a viable solution to high heat rejection requirements of today’s high-power electronic devices, such as diode lasers. The thermal design of these small electronics cooling devices is a key issue that needs to be optimized in order to keep the system temperatures at certain levels. However, this optimization should balance the heat transfer with pressure drop through the system by modifying the geometrical design. This technique is used in optimizing the performance of a microchannel cooler for high-power semiconductor diode laser applications in this study. The results show that symmetrical design modifications improve both pressure drop and heat transfer significantly, while resizing the channels may affect slightly.     

Power-aware BTB for modern processors

Modern processors access the branch target buffer (BTB) every cycle to speculate branch target addresses. This aggressive approach improves performance as it results in early identification of target addresses. However, unfortunately, such accesses, quite often, are unnecessary as there is no control flow instruction among those fetched.In this work, we introduce speculative BTB access to address this design inefficiency. Our technique relies on a simple power efficient structure, referred to as the BLC-filter, to identify cycles where there is no control flow instruction among those fetched, at least one cycle in advance. By identifying such cycles and eliminating unnecessary BTB accesses we reduce BTB power dissipation (and therefore power density).     

Study of carbon dioxide condensation in chevron plate exchangers; pressure drop analysis

Condensation pressure drop of carbon dioxide in brazed plate heat exchangers was investigated, and is presented in this paper. Carbon dioxide is known as an environmental friendly refrigerant with an Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) equal to zero and Global Warming Potential (GWP) equal to unity, and has favorable thermodynamic and transport properties though it requires higher operating pressures (～15–30 bar). Brazed-type plate heat exchangers that can withstand high pressure are a good choice for such applications. This paper presents the procedure, data collection, and results for three brazed plate heat exchangers with different inner geometries. The test exchangers showed good performance at high system pressures with reasonable pressure drops (less than 8%). The collected experimental data that covered real world operating conditions are valuable for the design of cascade condensers with carbon dioxide as the low-side refrigerant.     

Cyclin D3 in the mouse uterus is associated with the decidualization process during early pregnancy

We study the impact of correlated neuronal firing rate variability on the accuracy with which an encoded quantity can be extracted from a population of neurons. Contrary to widespread belief, correlations in the variabilities of neuronal firing rates do not, in general, limit the increase in coding accuracy provided by using large populations of encoding neurons. Furthermore, in some cases, but not all, correlations improve the accuracy of a population code.