Using Neural Networks for Pattern Association for the Online Purchase of Products

Abstract: Today, a huge percentage of all the business transactions that take place in the domain of e-commerce are dominated by online shopping after the virtual market conceptualization of the business. This paper focuses on how pattern association rules may be obtained from the dynamic databases generated during purchases in an e-Store to maximize the profit of the marketer. In this paper, ANN has been used as a tool for generating pattern association rules during online purchases of products to aid the cross-selling of products. For getting the rules, a methodology using artificial neural networks has been adapted for usage using an extended Delta rule for initial training of the network and a hetero-associative neural network for generating and storing the associative rules. Also, a methodology has been proposed to filter out all rules which do not add economic value to the firm and then select that rule which will meet the profit maximization objective of the marketer

Deficiency of RgpG causes major defects in cell division and biofilm formation, and deficiency of LytR-CpsAPsr family proteins leads to accumulation of cell wall antigens in culture medium by Streptococcus mutans

ABSTRACT Streptococcus mutans is known to possess rhamnose-glucose polysaccharide (RGP), a major cell wall antigen. S. mutans strains deficient in rgpG , encoding the first enzyme of the RGP biosynthesis pathway, were constructed by allelic exchange. The rgpG deficiency had no effect on growth rate but caused major defects in cell division and altered cell morphology. Unlike the coccoid wild type, the rgpG mutant existed primarily in chains of swollen, “squarish” dividing cells. Deficiency of rgpG also causes significant reduction in biofilm formation ( P &lt; 0.01). Double and triple mutants with deficiency in brpA and/or psr , genes coding for the LytR-CpsA-Psr family proteins BrpA and Psr, which were previously shown to play important roles in cell envelope biogenesis, were constructed using the rgpG mutant. There were no major differences in growth rates between the wild-type strain and the rgpG brpA and rgpG psr double mutants, but the growth rate of the rgpG brpA psr triple mutant was reduced drastically ( P &lt; 0.001). Under transmission electron microscopy, both double mutants resembled the rgpG mutant, while the triple mutant existed as giant cells with multiple asymmetric septa. When analyzed by immunoblotting, the rgpG mutant displayed major reductions in cell wall antigens compared to the wild type, while little or no signal was detected with the double and triple mutants and the brpA and psr single mutants. These results suggest that RgpG in S. mutans plays a critical role in cell division and biofilm formation and that BrpA and Psr may be responsible for attachment of cell wall antigens to the cell envelope. IMPORTANCE Streptococcus mutans , a major etiological agent of human dental caries, produces rhamnose-glucose polysaccharide (RGP) as the major cell wall antigen. This study provides direct evidence that deficiency of RgpG, the first enzyme of the RGP biosynthesis pathway, caused major defects in cell division and morphology and reduced biofilm formation by S. mutans , indicative of a significant role of RGP in cell division and biofilm formation in S. mutans . These results are novel not only in S. mutans , but also other streptococci that produce RGP. This study also shows that the LytR-CpsA-Psr family proteins BrpA and Psr in S. mutans are involved in attachment of RGP and probably other cell wall glycopolymers to the peptidoglycan. In addition, the results also suggest that BrpA and Psr may play a direct role in cell division and biofilm formation in S. mutans . This study reveals new potential targets to develop anticaries therapeutics. </jats:p

Workforce Scheduling with Order-Picking Assignments in Distribution Facilities

Scheduling the availability of order pickers is crucial for effective operations in a distribution facility with manual order pickers. When order-picking activities can only be performed in specific time windows, it is essential to jointly solve the order picker shift scheduling problem and the order picker planning problem of assigning and sequencing individual orders to order pickers. This requires decisions regarding the number of order pickers to schedule, shift start and end times, break times, as well as the assignment and timing of order-picking activities. We call this the order picker scheduling problem and present two formulations. A branch-and-price algorithm and a metaheuristic are developed to solve the problem. Numerical experiments illustrate that the metaheuristic finds near-optimal solutions at 80% shorter computation times. A case study at the largest supermarket chain in The Netherlands shows the applicability of the solution approach in a real-life business application. In particular, different shift structures are analyzed, and it is concluded that the retailer can increase the minimum compensated duration for employed workers from six hours to seven or eight hours while reducing the average labor cost with up to 5% savings when a 15-minute flexibility is implemented in the scheduling of break times

Some conformal vector fields and conformal Ricci solitons on N(k)N(k)-contact metric manifolds

The target of this paper is to study $N(k)$-contact metric manifolds with some types of conformal vector fields like $\phi$-holomorphic planar conformal vector fields and Ricci biconformal vector fields. We also characterize $N(k)$-contact metric manifolds allowing conformal Ricci almost soliton. Obtained results are supported by examples