OVRP_GELS: solving open vehicle routing problem using the gravitational emulation local search algorithm

In open vehicle routing problem (OVRP), after delivering service to the last customer, the vehicle does not necessarily return to the initial depot. This type of problem originally defined about thirty years ago and still is an open issue. In real life, the OVRP is similar to the delivering newspapers and consignments. The problem of service delivering to a set of customers is a particular open VRP with an identical fleet for transporting vehicles that do not necessarily return to the initial depot. Contractors which are not the employee of the delivery company use their own vehicles and do not return to the depot. Solving the OVRP means to optimize the number of vehicles, the traveling distance and the traveling time of a vehicle. In time, several algorithms such as tabu search, deterministic annealing and neighborhood search were used for solving the OVRP. In this paper, a new combinatorial algorithm named OVRP_GELS based on gravitational emulation local search algorithm for solving the OVRP is proposed. We also used record-to-record algorithm to improve the results of the GELS. Several numerical experiments show a good performance of the proposed method for solving the OVRP when compared with existing techniques.

     

Resource provisioning for cloud applications: a 3-D,provident and flexible approach

The scalability feature of cloud computing attracts application service providers (ASPs) to use cloud application hosting. In cloud environments, resources can be dynamically provisioned on demand for ASPs. Autonomic resource provisioning for the purpose of preventing resources over-provisioning or under-provisioning is a widely investigated topic in cloud environments. There has been proposed a lot of resource-aware and/or service-level agreement (SLA)-aware solutions to handle this problem. However, intelligence solutions such as exploring the hidden knowledge on the Web users’ behavior are more effective in cost efficiency. Most importantly, with considering cloud service diversity, solutions should be flexible and customizable to fulfill ASPs’ requirements. Therefore, lack of a flexible resource provisioning mechanism is strongly felt. In this paper, we proposed an autonomic resource provisioning mechanism with resource-aware, SLA-aware, and user behavior-aware features, which is called three-dimensional mechanism. The proposed mechanism used radial basis function neural network in order to provide providence and flexibility features. The experimental results showed that the proposed mechanism reduces the cost while guarantees the quality of service.     

Embedding cycles and paths on solid grid graphs

Despite many algorithms for embedding graphs on unbounded grids, only a few results on embedding graphs on restricted grids have been published. In this paper, we study the problem of embedding paths and cycles on solid grid graphs. We show that a cycle of length k is unit-length embeddable on a solid grid graph G if k is an even integer between four and the length of the longest cycle of G. In addition, our result shows that a path of length k is unit-length embeddable on G, between its two given vertices s and t, if \(k\le L\) and \(k\equiv L (\mathrm{mod}\ 2)\), in which L is the length of the longest path between s and t. Our presented two algorithms show that such embeddings can be found in linear time for cycles and quadratic time for paths, with respect to the size of graph G. In the case of rectangular grid graphs, the running time of the algorithms can be improved to O(k) and O\((k^2)\), respectively. In addition, we extend our results to \(m\times n\times o\) 3D grids. A application of our result is in the interconnection network mapping in parallel processing.     

Enhanced antibacterial effect of azlocillin in conjugation with silver nanoparticles against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

In recent years, the problems associated with bacterial resistance to antibiotics caused nanodrugs to be considered as a new way for infectious diseases treatment. The main purpose of this study was to develop a new agent against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a very difficult bacterium to treat, based on azlocillin antibiotic and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Azlocillin was conjugated with AgNPs by chemical methods and its antimicrobial activity was studied against P. aeruginosa using well diffusion agar method. Then, minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration of the new conjugate was specified with macro‐dilution method. The animal study showed the considerable enhanced antibacterial effect of azlocillin in conjugation with AgNPs against P. aeruginosa in comparison with azlocillin alone, AgNPs alone and azlocillin in combination with AgNPs.Inspec keywords: antibacterial activity, silver, nanoparticles, organic compounds, microorganisms, drugs, nanomedicine, biomedical materials, diseases, diffusion, nanofabricationOther keywords: Ag, macrodilution method, minimum bactericidal concentration, minimum inhibitory concentration, well diffusion agar method, P. aeruginosa, antimicrobial activity, chemical methods, azlocillin antibiotic nanoparticles, infectious diseases treatment, nanodrugs, bacterial resistance, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, silver nanoparticles, antibacterial effect     

Investigation of fatigue crack growth rate in CARALL,ARALL and GLARE

Fibre metal laminates (FMLs) are being used to manufacture many structural components in aerospace industry because of their very high strength to weight ratios, yet the exact model for estimating fatigue crack propagation in FMLs cannot be developed because of many variable parameters affecting it. In this research, tensile strength, fatigue life and fracture toughness values of 2/1 configuration carbon reinforced aluminium laminate (CARALL), aramid reinforced aluminium laminate and glass laminate aluminium reinforced epoxy specimens have been investigated. Mechanical, chemical and electrochemical surface treatments were applied to AA 1050 face sheets to improve the adhesive properties of the laminates. The specimens were prepared using vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding technique and were cut to desired shapes. Fatigue tests were conducted on centre notched specimens according to ASTM Standard E399. Real time material data and properties of adhesive were used in definition of numerical simulation model to obtain the values of stress intensity factor at different crack lengths. It was observed that CARALL shows very superior tensile and fatigue strength because of stress distribution during failure. Numerical simulation model developed in this research accurately predicts fracture toughness of aramid reinforced aluminium laminate, CARALL and glass laminate aluminium reinforced epoxy with less than 2% error. An empirical analytical model using experimental data obtained during research was developed which accurately predicts the trend of FMLs fatigue life.     

Calculation of AC Magnetizing Loss of ReBCO Superconducting Tapes Subjected to Applied Distorted Magnetic Fields

In recent years, there are fast-increasing concerns on the utilizations of superconducting rotating electrical machines in different application areas, such as ship propulsion systems, aircraft drivers, and wind turbine generators, since these machines exhibit the merits of high current density, compact design, high power density, light weight, high torque density as well as high efficiency. One of the main limitations in front of the vast use of superconducting tapes in the fabrication of electrical machineries is AC magnetizing loss when tapes are exposed to an external magnetic field, which can decrease the critical current density of wires, as well. In the literature, most of the research works have been done on calculation of the AC magnetizing loss under a pure external magnetic field, while in reality, magnetic flux lines in AC electrical machines are usually distorted with harmonics because of different reasons such as distorted leakage flux, distributed coils of a winding in several slots, cogging fields, mechanical faults, etc. Since these distorted fields contain harmonics, then in this paper, the AC magnetizing loss of superconducting tapes has been electromagnetically modeled and calculated when they are subjected to nonsinusoidally distorted external magnetic fields. The magnetic field dependency of critical current density has been considered in a proposed finite element model. The results have shown that the AC magnetizing loss increases significantly under a distorted applied field compared with a sinusoidal one. In addition, the loss increase depends on the harmonic content which would increases drastically with total harmonic distortion of the applied magnetic field.     

Effectiveness of crypto-transcoding for H.264/AVC and HEVC video bit-streams

Multimedia Tools and Applications - To avoid delays arising from a need to decrypt a video prior to transcoding and then re-encrypt it afterwards, this paper assesses a selective encryption (SE)...     

Impacts of prior parameter distributions on Bayesian evaluation of groundwater model complexity

This study used the marginal likelihood and Bayesian posterior model probability for evaluation of model complexity in order to avoid using over-complex models for numerical simulations. It focused on investigation of the impacts of prior parameter distributions (involved in calculating the marginal likelihood) on the evaluation of model complexity. We argue that prior parameter distributions should define the parameter space in which numerical simulations are made. New perspectives on the prior parameter distribution and posterior model probability were demonstrated in an example of groundwater solute transport modeling with four models, each simulating four column experiments. The models had different levels of complexity in terms of their model structures and numbers of calibrated parameters. The posterior model probability was evaluated for four cases with different prior parameter distributions. While the distributions substantially impacted model ranking, the model ranking in each case was reasonable for the specific circumstances in which numerical simulations were made. For evaluation of model complexity, it is thus necessary to determine the parameter spaces for modeling, which can be done by conducting numerical simulation and using engineering judgment based on understanding of the system being studied.     

Direct Power Control of Dfig by Using Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller

This paper proposes a nonlinear model predictive direct power control (PDPC) strategy for a double fed induction generator (DFIG)‐based wind energy generation system. Active and reactive power variations of DFIG are calculated based on machine rules, and a nonlinear model of DFIG is given. A nonlinear model predictive controller (NMPC) is presented based on the useful cost function and constraint that it results in more proximity between simulations and reality. The power and current ripples are reduced and the optimal rotor voltage is generated based on an objective function and the constraints. The rotor voltage vector is calculated in the synchronous reference frame and transferred into the rotor reference frame. Simulation results of a 2 MW DFIG system show good performance of the proposed method during variation of active and reactive powers, machine parameters, and wind speed. Also, the transient responses of active and reactive powers are within a few milliseconds.     

A low power reconfigurable multi-mode continuous time Delta Sigma modulator for seven different mobile standards with VCO-based quantizer

In this research a novel low power multi-mode continuous time Delta Sigma modulator was designed to be compatible with many mobile wireless standards. This modulator has a reconfigurable structure to adapt to various standards from 0.2 to 20 MHz. The designed modulator uses a VCO-based quantizer not only for lowering power consumption, but also for reducing the required chip area. The presented modulator can function with up to third order of noise shaping, or in a low power mode in which the loop filter is disabled and only the VCO-based quantizer is used. The proposed modulator was implemented and simulated in transistor level in 180 nm technology. This modulator can digitize at least seven standards (LTE (20 MHz)/WLAN/LTE (9 MHz)/WCDMA/UMTS/Bluetooth/GSM) with a favorable dynamic range (65–89 dB) and power consumption (9.1 mW–670 μW).