The Optimal Replenishment Policy under Trade Credit Financing with Ramp Type Demand and Demand Dependent Production Rate

This paper investigates the optimal replenishment policy for the retailer with the ramp type demand and demand dependent production rate involving the trade credit financing, which is not reported in the literatures. First, the two inventory models are developed under the above situation. Second, the algorithms are given to optimize the replenishment cycle time and the order quantity for the retailer. Finally, the numerical examples are carried out to illustrate the optimal solutions and the sensitivity analysis is performed. The results show that if the value of production rate is small, the retailer will lower the frequency of putting the orders to cut down the order cost; if the production rate is high, the demand dependent production rate has no effect on the optimal decisions. When the trade credit is less than the growth stage time, the retailer will shorten the replenishment cycle; when it is larger than the breakpoint of the demand, within the maturity stage of the products, the trade credit has no effect on the optimal order cycle and the optimal order quantity

Learning the Unlearnable: Adversarial Augmentations Suppress Unlearnable Example Attacks

Unlearnable example attacks are data poisoning techniques that can be used to safeguard public data against unauthorized use for training deep learning models. These methods add stealthy perturbations to the original image, thereby making it difficult for deep learning models to learn from these training data effectively. Current research suggests that adversarial training can, to a certain degree, mitigate the impact of unlearnable example attacks, while common data augmentation methods are not effective against such poisons. Adversarial training, however, demands considerable computational resources and can result in non-trivial accuracy loss. In this paper, we introduce the UEraser method, which outperforms current defenses against different types of state-of-the-art unlearnable example attacks through a combination of effective data augmentation policies and loss-maximizing adversarial augmentations. In stark contrast to the current SOTA adversarial training methods, UEraser uses adversarial augmentations, which extends beyond the confines of $\ell_p$ perturbation budget assumed by current unlearning attacks and defenses. It also helps to improve the model's generalization ability, thus protecting against accuracy loss. UEraser wipes out the unlearning effect with error-maximizing data augmentations, thus restoring trained model accuracies. Interestingly, UEraser-Lite, a fast variant without adversarial augmentations, is also highly effective in preserving clean accuracies. On challenging unlearnable CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, SVHN, and ImageNet-subset datasets produced with various attacks, it achieves results that are comparable to those obtained during clean training. We also demonstrate its efficacy against possible adaptive attacks. Our code is open source and available to the deep learning community: https://github.com/lafeat/ueraser.Comment: UEraser introduces adversarial augmentations to suppress unlearnable example attacks and outperforms current defense

A fast responsive chromogenic and near-infrared fluorescence lighting-up probe for visual detection of toxic thiophenol in environmental water and living cells

Thiophenols as high toxic environmental pollutants are poisonous for animals and aquatic organisms. Therefore, it is indispensable to monitor thiophenols in the environment. Herein, a novel near-infrared fluorescent probe was developed for the detection of thiophenols, which was easily prepared by one-step coupling of 2,4-dini trobenzenesulfonyl chloride with Nile blue. The probe showed a significant near infrared (∼675 nm) fluores cence “turn-on” response to thiophenols with some good features including chromogenic reaction, high sensi tivity and selectivity, fast response, near-infrared emission along with low detection limit (1.8 nM). The probe was employed to rapidly and visually determine thiophenols in several industrial wastewaters with good re coveries (90–110%). Moreover, this probe has been demonstrated good capability for imaging thiophenol in HeLa cellsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interactions between Casein Micelles and Various Active Molecules and Properties of Their Complexes

In this study, binary and ternary complexes were prepared by heat treatment or combined heat and ultrasonic treatment using casein micelles (MC) as matrix and proanthocyanidin (PC), catechin (Cat) and chlorophyllin sodium copper salt (Chl) or their binary combinations as ligands. The interactions between PC, Cat, Chl or their binary combinations and MC were analyzed, and the binding capacity of MC to the various active molecules was evaluated. In addition, the structure, microscopic morphology and thermal stability of the complexes were characterized, and the antioxidant properties and in vitro digestibility of the ternary complexes were investigated as well. The results showed that PC, Cat and Chl formed binary complexes with MC through hydrophobic interactions, among which MC showed the highest affinity for Chl. Under heat treatment conditions, MC bound one molecule through hydrophobic interaction and another one by van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonds. At 298 K, the binding of the first molecule improved the binding constant and the number of binding sites of the second one. The binding of PC, Cat, Chl or their binary complexes had no significant effect on the spatial structure or microscopic morphology of MC. The thermal stability of MC was enhanced after the binding of bioactive molecules under heat treatment conditions. In terms of antioxidant properties, heat treatment promoted the 2,2’-azino bis-(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonicacid) (ABTS) radical cation scavenging activity of the ternary complexes, while combined heat and ultrasonic treatment promoted their 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity. In addition, the loading of active molecules improved the digestibility of MC in simulated intestinal fluid. This study could provide a reference for the application of MC in the loading of bioactive molecules

Properties and Proanthocyanidin-Loading Capacity of Acid-Induced Micellar Casein-Sodium Alginate Emulsion Gels

In this work, oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion gels with 70% oil phase were prepared using micellar casein (MC) and sodium alginate (SA) as substrates with the addition of gluconate-δ-lactone (GDL) as acidifying agent. The effects of GDL addition on the microstructure, stability and rheological properties of emulsion gels were studied, and the release characteristics of emulsion gels loaded with proanthocyanidins (PC) were analyzed. The results showed that with increasing GDL concentration, the average size of oil droplets in emulsion gels decreased, and it gradually decreased during the storage period. GDL acidification improved the apparent viscosity and storage modulus of emulsion gels, and this effect increased with GDL concentration. The microstructure of emulsion gels did not change significantly after heat treatment at 65 or 80 ℃ for 30 min. Meanwhile, the emulsion gels were stable to acidic and basic conditions as well as storage. In addition, the release rate of PC-loaded emulsion gels was higher than that of free PC during simulated intestinal digestion, and the cumulative release rate at 10 h increased with GDL concentration. The results of this study could provide a reference for the preparation of emulsion gels based on MC and the improvement of PC stability

Fermentation quality, aerobic stability, and microbiome structure and function of Caragana korshinskii silage inoculated with/without Lactobacillus rhamnosus or Lactobacillus buchneri

Caragana korshinskii is a forage shrub species with high-protein content that has been extensively used to alleviate feed shortages for ruminants in northern China. Herein, we investigated the effects of Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Lactobacillus buchneri on the fermentation quality, aerobic stability, and microbiome composition and the predicted functional characteristics of C. korshinskii silage. C. korshinskii silages were inoculated with and without L. rhamnosus or L. buchneri. After 14 and 56 days of ensiling, the aerobic stability was determined. The results revealed that after 14 and 56 days of ensiling, L. rhamnosus- and L. buchneri-inoculated silage exhibited increased acetic acid and lactic acid contents, whereas the pH and 2,3-butanediol and butyric acid contents were decreased compared with those of the control silage. The control silages that were opened at 14 and 56 d, deteriorated during the aerobic stability test, whereas silages inoculated with L. rhamnosus and L. buchneri did not exhibit any aerobic deterioration. The control silage showed an increased Clostridium and Bacillus abundance, whereas Lactobacillus abundance decreased compared with L. rhamnosus- and L. buchneri-inoculated silages, following the 7 days of aerobic exposure. The fermentation parameters were associated with microbial communities, including Lactobacillus, Pedicoccus, Weissella, Clostridium, and Bacillus. Carbohydrate and amino acid metabolisms in the control silage decreased after 7 days of aerobic exposure compared with lactic acid bacteria-inoculated silages. To conclude, next-generation sequencing combined with 16S ribosomal RNA gene-predicted functional analyses might provide new information about the silage quality during fermentation and the aerobic stability

HRS1 Acts as a Negative Regulator of Abscisic Acid Signaling to Promote Timely Germination of Arabidopsis Seeds

In this work, we conducted functional analysis of Arabidopsis HRS1 gene in order to provide new insights into the mechanisms governing seed germination. Compared with wild type (WT) control, HRS1 knockout mutant (hrs1-1) exhibited significant germination delays on either normal medium or those supplemented with abscisic acid (ABA) or sodium chloride (NaCl), with the magnitude of the delay being substantially larger on the latter media. The hypersensitivity of hrs1-1 germination to ABA and NaCl required ABI3, ABI4 and ABI5, and was aggravated in the double mutant hrs1-1abi1-2 and triple mutant hrs1-1hab1-1abi1-2, indicating that HRS1 acts as a negative regulator of ABA signaling during seed germination. Consistent with this notion, HRS1 expression was found in the embryo axis, and was regulated both temporally and spatially, during seed germination. Further analysis showed that the delay of hrs1-1 germination under normal conditions was associated with reduction in the elongation of the cells located in the lower hypocotyl (LH) and transition zone (TZ) of embryo axis. Interestingly, the germination rate of hrs1-1 was more severely reduced by the inhibitor of cell elongation, and more significantly decreased by the suppressors of plasmalemma H+-ATPase activity, than that of WT control. The plasmalemma H+-ATPase activity in the germinating seeds of hrs1-1 was substantially lower than that exhibited by WT control, and fusicoccin, an activator of this pump, corrected the transient germination delay of hrs1-1. Together, our data suggest that HRS1 may be needed for suppressing ABA signaling in germinating embryo axis, which promotes the timely germination of Arabidopsis seeds probably by facilitating the proper function of plasmalemma H+-ATPase and the efficient elongation of LH and TZ cells