Robust optimisation of sustainable food grain transportation with uncertain supply and intentional disruptions

The proliferating need for sustainability intervention in food grain transportation planning is anchoring the attention of researchers in the interests of stakeholders and environment at large. Uncertainty associated with food grain supply further intensifies the problem steering the need for designing robust, cost-efficient and sustainable models. In line with this, this paper aims to develop a robust and sustainable intermodal transportation model to facilitate single type of food grain commodity shipments while considering procurement uncertainty, greenhouse gas emissions, and intentional hub disruption. The problem is designed as a mixed integer non-linear robust optimisation model on a hub and spoke network for evaluating near optimal shipment quantity, route selection and hub location decisions. The robust optimisation approach considers minimisation of total relative regret associated with total cost subject to several real-time constraints. A version of Particle Swarm Optimisation with Differential Evolution is proposed to tackle the resulting NP-hard problem. The model is tested with two other state-of the art meta-heuristics for small, medium, and large datasets subject to different procurement scenarios inspired from real time food grain operations in Indian context. Finally, the solution is evaluated with respect to total cost, model and solution robustness for all instances.     

Near infrared light-induced disassembly of polymeric micelles based on methylene blue conjugated polyethylene glycol

Light-sensitive drug delivery systems are considered ideal for applications in the biomedical fields for their ability to release the payload in an on-demand spatiotemporal controlled manner through the manipulation of the light source. Among the broad radiation spectrum, near infrared (NIR) light is considered advantageous compared to UV and visible light, due to its inherently lower photodamage to normal tissues and deeper penetration to lesion areas. In this study, we report a successful synthesis of a polymer capable of undergoing partial degradation upon irradiation with NIR light by conjugating 10-N-carbamoyl linkage methylene blue (MB) moiety, a NIR photocleavable ligand, with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Through effective coupling of MB, a hydrophobic moiety, to the hydrophilic PEG molecule, an amphiphilic polymer was synthesized, as demonstrated by a lowered surface tension (55 mN/m at 0.1% wt/vol). Subsequently, photo-induced reversal of surface activity associated with self-assembled structure disruption, was displayed by surface tension measurements, size distribution analysis, and burst release profile of paclitaxel (PTX) from polymeric micelles upon the exposure to NIR irradiation.     

Formulation and development of ophthalmic in situ gel for the treatment ocular inflammation and infection using application of quality by design concept

Context: The conventional liquid ophthalmic delivery systems exhibit short pre-corneal residence time and the relative impermeability to the cornea which leads to poor ocular bioavailability.

Objective: The aim of this study was to apply quality by design (QbD) for development of dexamethasone sodium phosphate (DSP) and tobramycin sulfate (TS)-loaded thermoresponsive ophthalmic in situ gel containing Poloxamer 407 and hydroxyl propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) K4M for prolonging the pre-corneal residence time, ocular bioavability and decreases the frequency of administration of dosage form. The material attributes and the critical quality attributes (CQA) of the in situ gel were identified. Central composite design (CCD) was adopted to optimize the formulation.

Materials and methods: The ophthalmic in situ forming gels were prepared by cold method. Materials attributes were the amount of Poloxamer 407 and HPMC and CQA identified were Gel strength, mucoadhesive index, gelation temperature and % of drug release of both drug.

Results and discussion: Optimized batch (F*) containing 16.75% poloxamer 407 and 0.54% HPMC K4M were exhibited all results in acceptable limits. Compared with the marketed formulation, optimized in situ gel showed delayed T_max, improved C_max and AUC in rabbit aqueous humor, suggesting the sustained drug release and better corneal penetration and absorption.

Conclusion: According to the study, it could be concluded that DSP and TS would be successfully formulated as in situ gelling mucoadhesive system for the treatment of steroid responsive eye infections with the properties of sustained drug release, prolonged ocular retention and improved corneal penetration.     

A blind medical image watermarking: DWT-SVD based robust and secure approach for telemedicine applications

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In this paper, a blind image watermarking scheme based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD) is proposed. In this scheme,...     

Retrieving and semantically integrating heterogeneous data from the Web

Building Finder uses semantic Web technologies to integrate different data types from various online data sources. The application's use of the RDF and RDF data query language makes it usable by computer agents as well as human users. An agent would send a query, expressed in terms of its preferred ontology (schema), to a system that would then find and integrate the relevant data from multiple sources and return it using the agent's ontology. We discuss about retrieving and semantically integrating heterogeneous data from the Web.     

Damage-Coupled Progressive Failure and Yield Line Analyses of Metal Plates

Continuum damage mechanics based progressive failure analysis of an aluminum alloy AL2024-T3 plate has been carried out. Isotropic continuum damage mechanics model proposed by Chandrakanth and Pandey in 1995 has been implemented in a nonlinear finite element computational scheme based on damage-coupled and damage-uncoupled elastoplastic constitutive relationship. In order to model the progressive growth of damage and plasticity from extreme fibers toward the neutral axis, discrete layered approach has been adopted in the formulation using Ahmed’s degenerate isoparametric shell element, which accounts for shear deformation. A critical damage criteria is used for determining the onset and propagation of failure in the plate. Damage-coupled and damage-uncoupled analyses have been carried out on rectangular and triangular plates of aluminum alloy Al2024-T3. Yield line patterns have been generated using extensive nonlinear progressive failure analysis and comparison with conventional yield line analysis has been made. It is envisioned that employing the methodology presented herein, yield line pattern generation for structural components with complex shapes can be obtained, which would significantly assist engineers in analysis and design of structures.