Sum Coloring : New upper bounds for the chromatic strength

The Minimum Sum Coloring Problem (MSCP) is derived from the Graph Coloring Problem (GCP) by associating a weight to each color. The aim of MSCP is to find a coloring solution of a graph such that the sum of color weights is minimum. MSCP has important applications in fields such as scheduling and VLSI design. We propose in this paper new upper bounds of the chromatic strength, i.e. the minimum number of colors in an optimal solution of MSCP, based on an abstraction of all possible colorings of a graph called motif. Experimental results on standard benchmarks show that our new bounds are significantly tighter than the previous bounds in general, allowing to reduce substantially the search space when solving MSCP .Comment: pre-prin

A Study of the Impact of the e-CRM Perspective on Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty-Exemplified by Bank Sinopac

As the Taiwanese government gradually opens up the country’s banking sector in recent years, the number of financial institutions of Taiwan has increased rapidly. Until the end of January 2010, the number of the domestic banks is up to 37, the average number of the customers served in each branch is less than 4,000. As all banks wish to be more competitive in such an environment, new advertising and marketing skills are taken. New banking services and technology are also provided in order to attract more customers. The study aims to discuss the relationship among three aspects including the Electronic Customer Relationship Management, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty, and we choose Bank Sinopac users as subject. In addition, the following results are concluded by statistics and analysis: 1. Using e-CRM had obvious on the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. 2. Customer satisfaction had obvious on the customer loyalty

Genome-wide identification and evolutionary analyses of the PP2C gene family with their expression profiling in response to multiple stresses in Brachypodium distachyon

Expression pattern of duplication BdPP2C genes under biotic/abiotic stresses and phytohormone treatments. (TIF 9276 kb

Mechanical property evaluation of porous 13-93 Bioactive Glass and GL1550 Borate Glass 3D scaffolds

poster abstractReconstructing large craniofacial defects is clinically challenging and current engineered scaffolds are inadequate in either mechanical or biologic properties. Borate bioactive-glass (BBG) is a promising material for scaffolds due to its higher solubility compared to traditional 13-93 bioactive glass. The main objective of the research is to compare the mechanical properties (σfailure, Pb) of scaffolds made from 13-93 bioactive-glass (A) and GL1550 borate bioactive-glass (B) powders, at different sintering temperatures, and with/without polymer coatings. In this paper, dense scaffolds are made via dry-pressing while porous scaffolds are made via a sol casting method using polymers to promote porosity (d=6mm, t=3-4mm). All the scaffolds were sintered in a tube furnace. The temperature increased 10˚C/min until reaching the sintering temperature which varied from 500oC and 700oC. All the samples were cooled in the furnace. The mechanical properties were measured using a diametral test on a Universal Testing Machine (MTS Sintech Renew, Model 1123, Minnesota, USA). For each group and temperature, at least 3 samples were tested. The mechanical properties (σfailure, Pb) of scaffolds made from 13-93 bioactive-glass and GL1550 bioactive-glass powders are compared. Samples are then coated with 1% or 5% PLLA. Effects of porosity, sintering temperature, and polymer coating are related to mechanical properties to find the optimal heat treatment procedures and polymer concentration. Balanced with the porosity, the optimal sintering temperature was set to be 540˚C for GL1550 bioactive-glass powder and 690˚C for 13-93 bioactive glass. At the optimal sintering temperature, Pb=14.516±2.075N, σf=0.487±0.036MPa for borate glass scaffold with ~67% porosity, and Pb=36.725±5.786N, σf=1.280±0.276MPa for 13-93 bioactive glass scaffold with ~50% porosity. The 5% coating of PLLA offers a good balance between maintaining a high level of porosity and mechanical property improvement. The processing conditions will be used for their future in vivo evaluations

Stabilnost i antioksidacijska aktivnost antocijanina iz borovnica

Anthocyanins from highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) have tremendous potential as natural colorants and functional food with pharmaceutical purposes in food applications. To exploit the potential for food applications, the stability and antioxidant activity of anthocyanins present in blueberries have been studied. The results indicate that anthocyanins from blueberry were stable against the low pH (≤5.0), NaCl (0.125–0.500 mol/L), sucrose (0.584–2.336 mol/L) and preservative (sodium benzoate, 0.035–0.140 mol/L), but were sensitive to alkaline conditions (≥7.0), high temperature (≥80 °C), light (natural light), oxidizing agent (H2O2, 0.5–2.0 %) and reducing agent (Na2SO3, 0.005–0.040 mol/L). At concentrations of 25 and 50 mg/mL, anthocyanins from blueberry could protect ECV-304 cells against oxidative damage induced by H2O2. These results suggest that anthocyanins from blueberry can be regarded as a potential colorant for some acidic (pH≤5.0) food products and could be used as health food to prevent diseases arising from oxidative processes.Antocijanini iz američkih borovnica (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) koriste se u prehrambenoj industriji kao prirodna bojila i za proizvodnju funkcionalne hrane. Stoga je u radu ispitana stabilnost i antioksidacijska aktivnost antocijanina izoliranih iz borovnica. Rezultati pokazuju da su antocijanini bili stabilni pri niskoj pH-vrijednosti (pH≤5) te malim koncentracijama soli (0,125–0,500 mol/L), saharoze (0,584–2,336 mol/L) i konzervansa natrijeva benzoata (0,035–0,140 mol/L), ali osjetljivi u lužnatoj sredini (pH≥7), pri visokoj temperaturi (≥80 °C), na prirodnom izvoru svjetlosti i u prisutnosti oksidansa (H2O2, 0,5–2 %) i reducensa (Na2SO3, 0,005–0,04 mol/L). Antocijanini iz borovnica u koncentracijama od 25 i 50 μg/mL štite ECV-304 stanice od stresa uzrokovanog dodatkom vodikova peroksida. Rezultati pokazuju da se antocijanini iz borovnica mogu upotrijebiti kao bojilo u proizvodnji hrane male pH-vrijednosti (pH≤5) te u proizvodnji zdrave hrane koja sprječava razvoj bolesti uzrokovanih oksidacijskim stresom

An Iterative Path-Breaking Approach with Mutation and Restart Strategies for the MAX-SAT Problem

Although Path-Relinking is an effective local search method for many combinatorial optimization problems, its application is not straightforward in solving the MAX-SAT, an optimization variant of the satisfiability problem (SAT) that has many real-world applications and has gained more and more attention in academy and industry. Indeed, it was not used in any recent competitive MAX-SAT algorithms in our knowledge. In this paper, we propose a new local search algorithm called IPBMR for the MAX-SAT, that remedies the drawbacks of the Path-Relinking method by using a careful combination of three components: a new strategy named Path-Breaking to avoid unpromising regions of the search space when generating trajectories between two elite solutions; a weak and a strong mutation strategies, together with restarts, to diversify the search; and stochastic path generating steps to avoid premature local optimum solutions. We then present experimental results to show that IPBMR outperforms two of the best state-of-the-art MAX-SAT solvers, and an empirical investigation to identify and explain the effect of the three components in IPBMR

Informal traders lock horns with the formal milk industry: the role of research in pro-poor dairy policy shift in Kenya

A polarizable atomic multipole-based force field for the membrane bilayer models 1,2-dioleoyl-phosphocholine (DOPC) and 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-phosphatidylethanolamine (POPE) has been developed. The force field adopts the same framework as the Atomic Multipole Optimized Energetics for Biomolecular Applications (AMOEBA) model, in which the charge distribution of each atom is represented by the permanent atomic monopole, dipole and quadrupole moments. Many-body polarization including the inter- and intra-molecular polarization is modelled in a consistent manner with distributed atomic polarizabilities. The van der Waals parameters were first transferred from existing AMOEBA parameters for small organic molecules and then optimised by fitting to ab initio intermolecular interaction energies between models and a water molecule. Molecular dynamics simulations of the two aqueous DOPC and POPE membrane bilayer systems, consisting of 72 model molecules, were then carried out to validate the force field parameters. Membrane width, area per lipid, volume per lipid, deuterium order parameters, electron density profile, etc. were consistent with experimental values