Scheduling Jobs in Flowshops with the Introduction of Additional Machines in the Future

This is the author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/expert-systems-with-applications/.The problem of scheduling jobs to minimize total weighted tardiness in flowshops,\ud with the possibility of evolving into hybrid flowshops in the future, is investigated in\ud this paper. As this research is guided by a real problem in industry, the flowshop\ud considered has considerable flexibility, which stimulated the development of an\ud innovative methodology for this research. Each stage of the flowshop currently has\ud one or several identical machines. However, the manufacturing company is planning\ud to introduce additional machines with different capabilities in different stages in the\ud near future. Thus, the algorithm proposed and developed for the problem is not only\ud capable of solving the current flow line configuration but also the potential new\ud configurations that may result in the future. A meta-heuristic search algorithm based\ud on Tabu search is developed to solve this NP-hard, industry-guided problem. Six\ud different initial solution finding mechanisms are proposed. A carefully planned\ud nested split-plot design is performed to test the significance of different factors and\ud their impact on the performance of the different algorithms. To the best of our\ud knowledge, this research is the first of its kind that attempts to solve an industry-guided\ud problem with the concern for future developments

Prestrain relaxation in non-covalently modified ethylene-vinyl acetate | PyChol | multiwall carbon nanotube nanocomposites

Effects of aging on chemical structure and molecular dynamic behaviour of strained thermally active ethylene-vinyl acetate | multiwall carbon nanotube (EVA|MWCNT) composites were investigated by spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. Aged composites showed spatial inhomogeneity due to system relaxation. Inhomogeneity is attributed to segregation of non-covalently linked cholestryl 1-pyrenecarboxylate, acting as MWCNT dispersant and polymer compatibilizer. Analysis of molecular interplay between filler and matrix upon in situ temperature variation showed a lack of synchronicity, which had been observed in fresh composites. Reduced synchronous interplay allowed quantification of degraded π-π interactions, promoting PyChol unlatching as a result of both sonication and strained-derived π-π degradation

Parameter mismatches,variable delay times and synchronization in time-delayed systems

We investigate synchronization between two unidirectionally linearly coupled chaotic non-identical time-delayed systems and show that parameter mismatches are of crucial importance to achieve synchronization. We establish that independent of the relation between the delay time in the coupled systems and the coupling delay time, only retarded synchronization with the coupling delay time is obtained. We show that with parameter mismatch or without it neither complete nor anticipating synchronization occurs. We derive existence and stability conditions for the retarded synchronization manifold. We demonstrate our approach using examples of the Ikeda and Mackey-Glass models. Also for the first time we investigate chaos synchronization in time-delayed systems with variable delay time and find both existence and sufficient stability conditions for the retarded synchronization manifold with the coupling delay lag time. Also for the first time we consider synchronization between two unidirectionally coupled chaotic multi-feedback Ikeda systems and derive existence and stability conditions for the different anticipating, lag, and complete synchronization regimes.Comment: 12 page

Lag time and parameter mismatches in synchronization of unidirectionally coupled chaotic external cavity semiconductor lasers

We report an analysis of synchronization between two unidirectionally coupled chaotic external cavity master/slave semiconductor lasers with two characteristic delay times, where the delay time in the coupling is different from the delay time in the coupled systems themselves. We demonstrate for the first time that parameter mismatches in photon decay rates for the master and slave lasers can explain the experimental observation that the lag time is equal to the coupling delay time.Comment: LaTex, 5 pages, submitted to PRE(R

Chiral phase boundary of QCD at finite temperature

We analyze the approach to chiral symmetry breaking in QCD at finite temperature, using the functional renormalization group. We compute the running gauge coupling in QCD for all temperatures and scales within a simple truncated renormalization flow. At finite temperature, the coupling is governed by a fixed point of the 3-dimensional theory for scales smaller than the corresponding temperature. Chiral symmetry breaking is approached if the running coupling drives the quark sector to criticality. We quantitatively determine the phase boundary in the plane of temperature and number of flavors and find good agreement with lattice results. As a generic and testable prediction, we observe that our underlying IR fixed-point scenario leaves its imprint in the shape of the phase boundary near the critical flavor number: here, the scaling of the critical temperature is determined by the zero-temperature IR critical exponent of the running coupling.Comment: 39 pages, 8 figure

On the infrared scaling solution of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in the maximally Abelian gauge

An improved method for extracting infrared exponents from functional equations is presented. The generalizations introduced allow for an analysis of quite complicated systems such as Yang-Mills theory in the maximally Abelian gauge. Assuming the absence of cancellations in the appropriately renormalized integrals the only consistent scaling solution yields an infrared enhanced diagonal gluon propagator in support of the Abelian dominance hypothesis. This is explicitly shown for SU(2) and subsequently verified for SU(N), where additional interactions exist. We also derive the most infrared divergent scaling solution possible for vertex functions in terms of the propagators' infrared exponents. We provide general conditions for the existence of a scaling solution for a given system and comment on the cases of linear covariant gauges and ghost anti-ghost symmetric gauges.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures; version coincides with version published in EPJ

Current-induced highly dissipative domains in high Tc thin films

We have investigated the resistive response of high Tc thin films submitted to a high density of current. For this purpose, current pulses were applied into bridges made of Nd(1.15)Ba(1.85)Cu3O7 and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8. By recording the time dependent voltage, we observe that at a certain critical current j*, a highly dissipative domain develops somewhere along the bridge. The successive formation of these domains produces stepped I-V characteristics. We present evidences that these domains are not regions with a temperature above Tc, as for hot spots. In fact this phenomenon appears to be analog to the nucleation of phase-slip centers observed in conventional superconductors near Tc, but here in contrast they appear in a wide temperature range. Under some conditions, these domains will propagate and destroy the superconductivity within the whole sample. We have measured the temperature dependence of j* and found a similar behavior in the two investigated compounds. This temperature dependence is just the one expected for the depairing current, but the amplitude is about 100 times smaller.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, Revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Synchronous counting and computational algorithm design

Consider a complete communication network on n nodes, each of which is a state machine with s states. In synchronous 2-counting, the nodes receive a common clock pulse and they have to agree on which pulses are “odd” and which are “even”. We require that the solution is self-stabilising (reaching the correct operation from any initial state) and it tolerates f Byzantine failures (nodes that send arbitrary misinformation). Prior algorithms are expensive to implement in hardware: they require a source of random bits or a large number of states s. We use computational techniques to construct very compact deterministic algorithms for the first non-trivial case of f = 1. While no algorithm exists for n < 4, we show that as few as 3 states are sufficient for all values n ≥ 4. We prove that the problem cannot be solved with only 2 states for n = 4, but there is a 2-state solution for all values n ≥ 6.Peer reviewe