Popular matchings with two-sided preferences and one-sided ties

We are given a bipartite graph $G = (A \cup B, E)$ where each vertex has a preference list ranking its neighbors: in particular, every $a \in A$ ranks its neighbors in a strict order of preference, whereas the preference lists of $b \in B$ may contain ties. A matching $M$ is popular if there is no matching $M'$ such that the number of vertices that prefer $M'$ to $M$ exceeds the number of vertices that prefer $M$ to~$M'$. We show that the problem of deciding whether $G$ admits a popular matching or not is NP-hard. This is the case even when every $b \in B$ either has a strict preference list or puts all its neighbors into a single tie. In contrast, we show that the problem becomes polynomially solvable in the case when each $b \in B$ puts all its neighbors into a single tie. That is, all neighbors of $b$ are tied in $b$'s list and $b$ desires to be matched to any of them. Our main result is an $O(n^2)$ algorithm (where $n = |A \cup B|$) for the popular matching problem in this model. Note that this model is quite different from the model where vertices in $B$ have no preferences and do not care whether they are matched or not.Comment: A shortened version of this paper has appeared at ICALP 201

Maximum Cardinality Popular Matchings in Strict Two-sided Preference Lists

We consider the problem of computing a maximum cardinality {\em popular} matching in a bipartite graph G = (\A\cup\B, E) where each vertex u \in \A\cup\B ranks its neighbors in a strict order of preference. This is the same as an instance of the {\em stable marriage} problem with incomplete lists. A matching $M^*$ is said to be popular if there is no matching $M$ such that more vertices are better off in $M$ than in $M^*$. \smallskip Popular matchings have been extensively studied in the case of one-sided preference lists, i.e., only vertices of \A have preferences over their neighbors while vertices in \B have no preferences; polynomial time algorithms have been shown here to determine if a given instance admits a popular matching or not and if so, to compute one with maximum cardinality. It has very recently been shown that for two-sided preference lists, the problem of determining if a given instance admits a popular matching or not is NP-complete. However this hardness result assumes that preference lists have {\em ties}. When preference lists are {\em strict}, it is easy to show that popular matchings always exist since stable matchings always exist and they are popular. But the complexity of computing a maximum cardinality popular matching was unknown. In this paper we show an $O(mn)$ algorithm for this problem, where n = |\A| + |\B| and $m = |E|$

Expanded Bed Adsorption: An Option For Energy Savings In Multiple Proteins Purification

Expanded Bed Adsorption enables the protein recovery directly from cultivations of microorganisms or cells and preparations of disrupted cells, without the need for prior removal of suspended solids. The performance ofan expanded bed is comparable to a packed bed owing to reduced mixing of the adsorbent particles, clogging/plugging of solid particles in the column, while fluidized bed requires more velocity which may hinder the adsorption equilibrium. However,optimal operating conditions are more restricted than in a packed bed/fluidized bed due to the dependence of bed expansion on the sizeand density of the adsorbent particles as well as the viscosity and density of the feedstock. These difficulties can beovercomes in expanded-bed chromatography. In this work the steady state hydrodynamic behaviour of expanded beds studied experimentally.The present study focused on hydrodynamics of multiple particles separation and subsequently can be applied to the multiple proteins separation in a single expanded bed

Featuring of Electricity Consumption Behavior towards Big-Data Applications

There is growing interest in discerning behaviors of electricity users in both the residential and commercial sectors. With the advent of high-resolution time-series power demand data through advanced metering. Large volumes of smart meter data gives opportunity for load serving entities to improve their knowledge on customers electricity consumption behavior via load profiling. This paper implements a novel approach for clustering of electricity consumption behavior dynamics.first for each individual customer symbolic aggregate approximation(SAX) to reduce the scale of the data set,and time based Markov model is applied to model the dynamics of electricity consumption, transforming the large set of load curves to several state transition matrixes. A density-based clustering technique, CFSFDP, is performed to discover the typical dynamics of electricity consumption and segment customers into different groups

An Empirical Analysis on E- Retail Service Quality, 3PL in Supply Chain L-SQUAL, E-SQUAL, and E-SRQUAL

Electronic commerce brings huge business opportunities and revenue growth to companies like e- retailers, mainly due to its convenient, interactive, lower costs and high degree of customization and personalization to their customers. With respect to logistics outsourcing, online shopping takes place in the chain consisting of the third party logistics providers, e-retailer, and the customer, which represents a service triad. Since, the delivery service is provided by the third party logistics (3PL) service providers, the satisfaction level of the end customers depends on the combination of both product delivery service and e-retailers service. The study proposes a research model that integrates the e-service quality (ESQ), e- service recovery quality(ESRQ), and the logistic service quality(LSQ) that are provided by the e-retailers, which furthers influences both customer satisfaction and loyalty. The study examines the second order dimensions of ESQ, ESRQ, and LSQ using second stage reflective-formative approach. The outcome of the data analysis, with the sample size of 350, concludes that ESQ strongly influences LSQ, customer satisfaction (CS) and customer loyalty (CL) when using online retail websites. Similarly, when CS is achieved it also has a strong relationship on CL. The outcome of the analysis also evaluated that ESRQ has a strong influence on CS. The relationship between LSQ and CS, LSQ and CL are strongly significant, than ESQ and ESRQ Index Terms— Service Quality, ESQ, ESRQ, 3PL and LS

Evaluation of F1 Hybrids in Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.) for Yield and Quality

To study the combining ability and heterosis for yield and quality characters, full diallel analysis was carried out in bitter gourd during January - April 2008 (Thai pattam), with 10 diversified parents, at Research Farm, Horticultural College and Research Institute, TNAU, Coimbatore. Parental mean and gca effects revealed that the parents Preethi, CO-1, MC-30, Uchha Bolder, Green Long and MC-105 were the best genotypes for improvement of yield, combined with quality characters. Hybrids, viz., Preethi x MC-30, KR x USL, MC-105 x MC-10 and Priyanka x CO-1 registered favourable values for mean, significant sca and standard heterosis for yield and quality parameters. Hence, these hybrids are recommended for commercial exploitation of heterosis. Comparison of parental gca and sca of hybrids revealed that hybridization between good x good, good x poor, medium x poor and poor x good combiners gave rise to hybrids with significant sca effects. Considering the mean performance, sca and standard heterosis, hybrid 'Preethi x MC-30' registered favourable values for the most important characters like earliness, number of fruits, fruit yield and quality. Top performing F1 hybrids can be tested over seasons and locations for assessing stability for high yield and quality

Design and Implementation an RFID Customer Shopping Behaviour Mining System

Shopping behavior data is of great an importance in understanding the effectiveness of marketing and merchandising campaigns. Online clothing stores are capable of the capturing customer shopping behavior by analyzing the click streams and customer shopping carts. Retailers within physical clothing stores, however, still lack effective methods to comprehensively identify shopping behaviors. In this study, we show that backscatter signals of passive RFID tags can be exploited to detect and record how customers browse stores, which garments they pay attention to, and which garments they usually pair up. The intuition is that phase readings of tags attached to items will demonstrate distinct yet stable patterns in a time-series when customers look at, pick out, or turn over desired items. We design Shop Miner, a framework that harnesses these unique spatial-temporal correlations of time-series phase readings to detect comprehensive shopping behaviors. We have implemented a prototype of Shop Miner with a COTS RFID reader and four antennas, and tested its effectiveness in two typical indoor environments. Empirical studies from two-week shopping-like data show that Shop Miner is able to identify customer shopping behaviors with high accuracy and low overhead, and is robust to interference

Effect of different levels and sources of calcium on post harvest physiology of hybrid tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)

Due to high respiration and ethylene production, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is highly perishable horticulture produce that deteriorates faster during the post-harvest storage period. Calcium nutrition is important to overcome these losses as it helps in retarding ripening process during storage and improve the post-harvest quality tomatoes. Hence a field experiment was conducted with different calcium sources and levels viz., Calcium sulphate, Calcium Nitrate, Calcium silicate, Poultry manure and Pressmud applied at 0, 20, 40, 60 and 80 kg Ca ha-1. A storage study was conducted in a factorial completely randomized block design (FCRD) to ensure the effective role of calcium in post-harvest quality of hybrid tomato. Tomatoes were analyzed for pH of fruit juice, firmness, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, moisture content and physiological loss at five days intervals upto 15 days. The results revealed thatCalcium sources and levels had highly significant impacts on the quality of tomato fruits. The tomatoes harvested from the plot applied with poultry manure at 80 kg Ca ha-1 retained the highest fruit firmness(3.76 N m-1), moisture content (88.2%) and the lowest weight loss (8.82%) in fruit, highertitratable acidity (0.41%), lesser pH (3.61)andtotal soluble solids (4.23 ˚Brix). Hence the application of poultry manure at 80 kg Ca ha-1was beneficial in improving the quality and extending the storage life of hybrid tomatoes

Chromophoric azo reagents for amino acid and peptide labeling

Four carboxylic azo dyes are presented as new markers with spectroscopic absorption peaks ranging from 400 to 500 nm for amino acid and peptide labeling at their N-terminus. Labeling can also be performed at side chain residues as it is exemplified with lysine and serine.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia