Bin Packing Problem with uncertainty on item availability: an application to Capacity Planning in Logistics

Most modern companies are part of international economic networks, where goods are produced under different strategies, then transported over long distances and stored for variable periods of time at different locations along the considered network. These activities are often performed by first consolidating goods in appropriate bins, which are then stored at warehouses and shipped using multiple vehicles through various transportation modes. Companies thus face the problem of planning for sufficient capacity, e.g., negotiating it with third party logistic firms (3PLs) that specify both the capacity to be used and the logistical services to be performed. Given the time lag that usually exists between the capacity-planning decisions and the operational decisions that define how the planned capacity is used, the common assumption that all information concerning the parameters of the model is known is unlikely to be observed. We therefore propose a new stochastic problem, named the Variable Cost and Size Bin Packing Problem with Stochastic Items. The problem considers a company making a tactical capacity plan by choosing a set of appropriate bins, which are defined according to their specific volume and fixed cost. Bins included in the capacity plan are chosen in advance without the exact knowledge of what items will be available for the dispatching. When, during the operational phase, the planned capacity is not sufficient, extra capacity must be purchased. An extensive experimental plan is used to analyze the impact that diversity in instance structure has on the capacity planning and the effect of considering different levels of variability and correlation of the stochastic parameters related to items

Automatic Morphological Analysis of Medial Temporal Lobe

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Working with Gravitational-Wave sky localizations: new methods and implementations

International audience; The era of multi-messenger astrophysics with Gravitational Waves (GW) requires the exploration and development of suitable methods and tools for real-time analysis as well as post-processing activities. The irregular and complex shapes of the GW sky localizations represent a new challenge for observational astronomers, who need to work with fast tiling, catalog queries, transient localizations, visibility and sky map comparisons. Here we show how gravitational-wave sky maps can be easily and efficiently visualized and processed using Multi-Order Coverage (MOC) maps. These maps are based on HEALPix sky tessellation which uses both Python language and the recent implementation in Aladin Desktop/Lite. In addition to this, we describe a specific interactive script, named GWsky, that we developed to effectively tile the sky localization of a gravitational-wave event providing accurate telescope pointings. We also show applications of these methods and tools for educational purposes in Virtual Reality Apps, high resolution images, and basic sonification of the GW sky maps.Finally, we describe possible evolutions of such implementations when three or more ground-based interferometers will be involved in a gravitational-wave source localization (i.e. Virgo,LIGO–Hanford, LIGO–Livingston, KAGRA, LIGO–India) with a corresponding increase of the sky map resolution

Design and implementation of a seismic Newtonian-noise cancellation system for the Virgo gravitational-wave detector

Terrestrial gravity perturbations caused by seismic fields produce the so-called Newtonian noise in gravitational-wave detectors, which is predicted to limit their sensitivity in the upcoming observing runs. In the past, this noise was seen as an infrastructural limitation, i.e., something that cannot be overcome without major investments to improve a detector's infrastructure. However, it is possible to have at least an indirect estimate of this noise by using the data from a large number of seismometers deployed around a detector's suspended test masses. The noise estimate can be subtracted from the gravitational-wave data; a process called Newtonian-noise cancellation (NNC). In this article, we present the design and implementation of the first NNC system at the Virgo detector as part of its AdV+ upgrade. It uses data from 110 vertical geophones deployed inside the Virgo buildings in optimized array configurations. We use a separate tiltmeter channel to test the pipeline in a proof-of-principle. The system has been running with good performance over months

Enhanced triacylglycerol catabolism by carboxylesterase 1 promotes aggressive colorectal carcinoma

The ability to adapt to low-nutrient microenvironments is essential for tumor cell survival and progression in solid cancers, such as colorectal carcinoma (CRC). Signaling by the NF-κB transcription factor pathway associates with advanced disease stages and shorter survival in patients with CRC. NF-κB has been shown to drive tumor-promoting inflammation, cancer cell survival, and intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) dedifferentiation in mouse models of CRC. However, whether NF-κB affects the metabolic adaptations that fuel aggressive disease in patients with CRC is unknown. Here, we identified carboxylesterase 1 (CES1) as an essential NF-κB–regulated lipase linking obesity-associated inflammation with fat metabolism and adaptation to energy stress in aggressive CRC. CES1 promoted CRC cell survival via cell-autonomous mechanisms that fuel fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and prevent the toxic build-up of triacylglycerols. We found that elevated CES1 expression correlated with worse outcomes in overweight patients with CRC. Accordingly, NF-κB drove CES1 expression in CRC consensus molecular subtype 4 (CMS4), which is associated with obesity, stemness, and inflammation. CES1 was also upregulated by gene amplifications of its transcriptional regulator HNF4A in CMS2 tumors, reinforcing its clinical relevance as a driver of CRC. This subtype-based distribution and unfavorable prognostic correlation distinguished CES1 from other intracellular triacylglycerol lipases and suggest CES1 could provide a route to treat aggressive CRC

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level