Hybrid Variable Neighborhood Search for Solving School Bus-Driver Problem with Resource Constraints

The School Bus-Driver Problem with Resource Constraints (SBDP-RC) is an optimization problem with many practical applications. In the problem, the number of vehicles is prepared to pick a number of pupils, in which the total resource of all vehicles is less than a predefined value. The aim is to find a tour minimizing the sum of pupils’ waiting times. The problem is NP-hard in the general case. In many cases, reaching a feasible solution becomes an NP-hard problem. To solve the large-sized problem, a metaheuristic approach is a suitable approach. The first phase creates an initial solution by the construction heuristic based on Insertion Heuristic. After that, the post phase improves the solution by the General Variable Neighborhood Search (GVNS) with Random Neighborhood Search combined with Shaking Technique. The hybridization ensures the balance between exploitation and exploration. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can escape from local optimal solutions. The proposed metaheuristic algorithm is tested on a benchmark to show the efficiency of the algorithm. The results show that the algorithm receives good feasible solutions fast. Additionally, in many cases, better solutions can be found in comparison with the previous metaheuristic algorithms

The evolution of population policy in Viet Nam

Three periods in the evolution of the population policy of Viet Nam are documented in this article: initiation in the 1960s and 1970s; maturity in the 1980s and 1990s; and legalization in the 2000s and early 2010s. A framework was used for stakeholder analysis in the sociopolitical context of Viet Nam in order to analyse interactions between leading state agencies in the development of population policy and their influence on the organizational structure of the population programme. The current tensions in the implementation of the population programme are highlighted, and a new population policy is called for that would be more conducive to addressing broader population and reproductive health issues, in order to respond more effectively to new challenges arising from the socioeconomic and demographic transition of the country

HyperCUT: Video Sequence from a Single Blurry Image using Unsupervised Ordering

We consider the challenging task of training models for image-to-video deblurring, which aims to recover a sequence of sharp images corresponding to a given blurry image input. A critical issue disturbing the training of an image-to-video model is the ambiguity of the frame ordering since both the forward and backward sequences are plausible solutions. This paper proposes an effective self-supervised ordering scheme that allows training high-quality image-to-video deblurring models. Unlike previous methods that rely on order-invariant losses, we assign an explicit order for each video sequence, thus avoiding the order-ambiguity issue. Specifically, we map each video sequence to a vector in a latent high-dimensional space so that there exists a hyperplane such that for every video sequence, the vectors extracted from it and its reversed sequence are on different sides of the hyperplane. The side of the vectors will be used to define the order of the corresponding sequence. Last but not least, we propose a real-image dataset for the image-to-video deblurring problem that covers a variety of popular domains, including face, hand, and street. Extensive experimental results confirm the effectiveness of our method. Code and data are available at https://github.com/VinAIResearch/HyperCUT.gitComment: Accepted to CVPR 202

Measuring unmet need for contraception among women in rural areas of Papua New Guinea

Located in the South West Pacific region, with a population of 7.5 million, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is among a group of Pacific countries with sub-optimal health status. The maternal mortality ratio is 171 per 100,000 live births. Unmet need for contraception and family planning services, although poorly understood in PNG, may be one of the underlying causes of poor maternal health. This study set out to measure the prevalence and trends in unmet need for contraception and the identified socioeconomic factors associated with contraceptive use among women of reproductive age (15–49 years) in PNG. Data available from the Integrated Health and Demographic Surveillance System (IHDSS) were used in this study. A sub-population data set was extracted of 1434 women who gave birth in the preceding two years and resided in four rural surveillance sites: Asaro, Hides, Hiri and Karkar. Analyzes of unmet need for contraception were performed with respect to birth spacing and limiting the number of births. Unmet need for contraception was 34% for the previous birth, 37% for the current pregnancy, and 49% for future family planning. The total unmet need for contraception was 35%, of which 49% was for spacing births and 51% for limiting births. Women's age, education and household wealth are the most significant determinants of unmet need for contraception. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. Analyzes of unmet need for contraception were performed with respect to birth spacing and limiting the number of births. Unmet need for contraception was 34% for the previous birth, 37% for the current pregnancy, and 49% for future family planning. The total unmet need for contraception was 35%, of which 49% was for spacing births and 51% for limiting births. Women's age, education and household wealth are the most significant determinants of unmet need for contraception. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. Analyzes of unmet need for contraception were performed with respect to birth spacing and limiting the number of births. Unmet need for contraception was 34% for the previous birth, 37% for the current pregnancy, and 49% for future family planning. The total unmet need for contraception was 35%, of which 49% was for spacing births and 51% for limiting births. Women's age, education and household wealth are the most significant determinants of unmet need for contraception. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. 37% for the current pregnancy, and 49% for future family planning. The total unmet need for contraception was 35%, of which 49% was for spacing births and 51% for limiting births. Women's age, education and household wealth are the most significant determinants of unmet need for contraception. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. 37% for the current pregnancy, and 49% for future family planning. The total unmet need for contraception was 35%, of which 49% was for spacing births and 51% for limiting births. Women's age, education and household wealth are the most significant determinants of unmet need for contraception. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required. The high level of unmet need for contraception may contribute to women's poor health status in PNG. Urgent programming responses from the health sector for supporting effective interventions to increase availability and use of contraceptives are required

Modeling of Sediment Transport and Turbidity Maximum in the Gironde Estuaries (France) by Single- and Two-Phase Approaches

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

Using penalty method in identification of elastic fixed stiffness of frame structure

This paper studies a method to identify the elastic fixed stiffness of the frame structure. The model of the problem is three dimensional structure, linear elastic deformation, pile - soil link is replaced by elastic fixed with stiffness. The problem will be solve by the penalty function method - the minimum of the objective function (which is the total squared error between the measured value and the calculated values particular) - combined with the finite element method. The numerical calculations show that the model, algorithm and calculation program are reliable. The program can be used to identify the elastic fixed stiffness of the frame structure in three dimension, serving to determine the actual working state of the structure, to propose solutions for reinforcement, repairing, improving bearing capacity, prolonging the life of the structure

Vitali's theorem without uniform boundedness

Let {fm}m≥1 be a sequence of holomorphic functions defined on a bounded domain D ⊂ Cn or a sequence of rational functions (1 ≤ deg rm ≤ m) defined on Cn. We are interested infinding sufficient conditions to ensure the convergence of {fm}m≥1 on a large set provided the convergence holds pointwise on a not too small set. This type of result is inspired from a theorem of Vitali which gives a positive answer for uniformly bounded sequence

Synthesis and characterization of MCM-41 containing CeO2

MCM-41 and cerium containing MCM-41 mesoporous materials were obtained by hydrothermal method under atmospheric pressure (the molar ratio SiO2/CeO2= x, x = 160, 80, 40, 20). The characteristics of all samples were investigated by ThermoGravimetric - Differential Thermal Analysis (TG-DTA), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. The results indicated that: particles are sphere, uniform and pore size is about 50 nm; the pore systems are hexagonal structure, ordered arrangement; the samples have high surface area ( 600 m2/g) with narrow pore size distribution curve. Results of EDX showed that the SiO2/CeO2molar ratios of samples were very similar to the molar ratios in gel

Catalytic Dye Oxidation over CeO2 Nanoparticles Supported on Regenerated Cellulose Membrane

A novel regenerated cellulose (RC) membrane containing cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles is described in detail. In this work, CeO2 nanoparticles with high surface area and mesoporosity were prepared by a modified template-assisted precipitation method. Successful synthesis was achieved using cerium nitrate as a precursor, adjusting the final pH solution to around 11 by ammonium hydroxide and ethylene diamine, and annealing at 550 °C for 3 hours under a protective gas flow. This resulted in a surface area of 55.55 m².g–1 for the nanoparticles. The regenerated cellulose membrane containing CeO2 particles was synthesized by the novel and environmentally friendly method. The catalyst CeO2 and cellulose/CeO2 membrane were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements. The g-value of 2.276 has confirmed the presence of the surface superoxide species of CeO2 nanoparticles in EPR. The photocatalytic activity of the catalyst and the membrane containing the catalyst was evaluated through the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation by UV-VIS measurements. The cellulose/CeO2 membrane degraded 80% of the methylene blue solution in 120 minutes, showing a better photocatalytic activity than the CeO2 catalyst, which degraded approximately 62% in the same period. It has been proven that the RC membrane is not only a good transparent supporting material but also a good adsorption for high-performance of CeO2 catalyst. Copyright © 2022 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Polarization Labelling Spectroscopy for NaLi

We use the polarization labelling spectroscopy technique for simplification of the spectra of alkali-metal NaLi molecule. As a result, the rotational resolution observation for NaLi in the 21 electronic state is reported for the first time