Academic literature on the topic 'VRPLC'

Voice range profiles (VRPs) were analyzed according to 11 frequency, intensity, and morphological characteristics for 94 normal children and 136 children with vocal fold pathologies (ages 6–11 years). Normative data are presented showing marked differences between the groups. Using a specific combination of the child's age, the highest vocal fundamental frequency, the lowest intensity, and the slope of the upper VRP contour, a Voice Range Profile Index for Children (VRPIc) may be constructed using discriminant analysis. It is shown how the VRPIc can be used to screen children for vocal disorder or to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of voice treatment. Since the group means of the VRPIc for healthy and dysphonic children are scaled to +10 and –10, respectively, the VRPIc enables the clinician to rate a child's vocal performance with reference to healthy and dysphonic children in general. The sensitivity and specificity of this method was found to be 90% and 83%, respectively.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a volcanic rock porous carrier (VRPC) on sludge reduction, pollutant removal, and microbial community structure in an anaerobic side-stream reactor (ASSR). Three lab-scale membrane bioreactors (MBRs), including an anoxic–oxic MBR, which served as the control (C-MBR), an ASSR-coupled MBR (A-MBR), and an A-MBR filled with VRPC (FA-MBR) were stably and simultaneously operated for 120 days. The effect of the three reactors on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) was almost negligible (all greater than 95%), but the average removal efficiency of ammonium nitrogen, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus was significantly improved by the insertion of an ASSR, especially when the ASSR was filled with VRPC. Finally, A-MBR and FA-MBR achieved 16.2% and 26.4% sludge reduction rates, with observed sludge yields of 0.124 and 0.109 g mixed liquid suspended solids/g COD, respectively. Illumina MiSeq sequencing revealed that microbial diversity and richness were highest in the VRPC, indicating that a large number of microorganisms formed on the carrier surface in the form of a biofilm. Abundant denitrifying bacteria (Azospira, Comamonadaceae_unclassified, and Flavobacterium) were immobilized on the carrier biofilm, which contributed to increased nitrogen removal. The addition of a VRPC to the ASSR successfully immobilized abundant hydrolytic, fermentative, and slow-growing microorganisms, which all contributed to reductions in sludge yield.

In practical logistic distributions, uncertainties may exist in each distribution process, and sometimes suppliers have to take undesirable measures to deal with the subsequent schedule variances. In light of the uncertainty of customers in logistics distribution and the widely applied two-dimensional loading patterns in transportation, we propose and formulate a two-dimensional loading-constrained vehicle routing problem with stochastic customers (2L-VRPSC), where each customer has a known probability of presence and customers’ demands are a set of non-stackable items. A stochastic modeling platform of 2L-VRPSC is established based on a Monte Carlo simulation and scenario analysis to minimize the expected total transportation cost. To achieve this, an enhanced adaptive tabu search (EATS) algorithm incorporating the multi-order bottom-fill-skyline (MOBFS) packing heuristic is proposed, where the EATS algorithm searches for the optimal routing combination and the MOBFS checks the feasibility of each route and guides the EATS to search for feasible solutions. The widely used two-dimensional loading-constrained vehicle routing problem (2L-VRP) benchmarks under different loading configurations considering items’ sequential and rotation constraints are applied for experiments, which demonstrates the comparable efficiency of the proposed EATS-MOBFS for solving 2L-VRP. Furthermore, the results and analysis of experiments based on the new 2L-VRPSC instances verify the versatility of the proposed solving approach, which is capable of providing more practical solutions to some real-life scenarios with customers’ uncertain information.

This paper introduces the vehicle routing problem with partial outsourcing (VRPPO) in which a customer can be served by a single private vehicle, by a common carrier, or by both a single private vehicle and a common carrier. As such, it is a variant of the vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carrier (VRPPC). The objective of the VRPPO is to minimize fixed and variable costs of the private fleet plus the outsourcing cost. We propose two different path-based formulations for the VRPPO and solve these with a branch-and-price-and-cut solution method. For each path-based formulation, two different pricing procedures are designed and used when solving the linear relaxations by column generation. To assess the quality of the solution methods and gain insight in potential cost improvements compared with the VRPPC, we perform tests on two instance sets with up to 100 customers from the literature.

Medical waste is one of the major hazardous wastes. Not only the costs (distance) but security issue also should be taken into consideration when we build the recovery network of medical waste. Load-balance can decrease transportation risk efficiently. From this point of view, we formulate a vehicle routing problem with balance constraints (VRPBC), where both costs and transportation risk are considered, to minimize the total distance and make the loads among recovery vehicles balanced. The results of the model also tell managers the number of the recovery vehicles they need to arrange and their travel path.The model is solved by using improved genetic algorithm (GA). This method can avoid dropping into local optimum by adding reverse evolution operation after crossover operation. Finally, the real data is collected from Jinniu District of Chengdu and the results show that VRPBC model can balance the load among all the vehicles efficiently. When imbalance penalty is between 0.06 and 0.1, the loads in each vehicle are totally balanced and the total distance is only 9.15% above the solution produced by VRP model.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between a widow's sex role identity and adjustment to the loss of a spouse. Two hypotheses were set forth: 1) Androgynous widows experience a more positive adjustment than feminine, masculine, or undifferentiated widows, and 2) Undifferentiated widows experience the most difficult adjustment of the four sex role groups. The Bem Sex Role Inventory was used to categorize widows ( N=45) into sex role groups, and the Health Adjustment, Social Adjustment, and Emotional Adjustment scales of the Bell Adjustment Inventory and the Carey Adjustment/Depression Scale for Widows were used to measure adjustment levels. Significant between group differences were found on the Health and Social Adjustment scales ( p<.05), with all sex role group means generally falling in the direction hypothesized. Results of this study suggest a relationship between behavioral flexibility as reflected in sex role identity and loss adjustment.

Introdução: A Disfunção Temporomandibular (DTM) é um termo utilizado para definir os problemas clínicos articulares, musculares e funcionais do sistema estomatognático. O tratamento para DTM é um desafio, visto que a sua etiologia é considerada multifatorial e complexa. Estudos mostram uma possível relação entre os sintomas de zumbido, otalgia e plenitude auricular com a DTM, mas ainda não estão bem esclarecidas. Objetivo: O presente estudo tem como objetivo descrever um caso clínico de indivíduo com diagnóstico de DTM associado a Sintomas Otológicos - SO atendido no ambulatório do Curso de Especialização em DTM e Dor Orofacial (DOF) para Fisioterapeutas na Associação Brasileira de Odontologia – seção Bahia. Descrição do Caso: Paciente VRPL, 51 anos, sexo feminino, casada, professora, diagnosticada em julho de 2019 com DTM associada a sintomas otológicos. Relatou dores nas regiões das Articulações Tempomandibulares (ATM’s), face, pescoço, cervical, cabeça, prevalecendo o lado esquerdo e SO (otalgia, zumbido e plenitude auricular, sendo este último declarado como o principal). Foi submetida a um protocolo de tratamento fisioterapêutico. Conclusões: Houve redução da intensidade da dor e dos sintomas otológicos. A remissão dos sinais e sintomas resultou em melhora no quadro de dor e na percepção do zumbido da paciente.

This paper deals with optimal distribution issues. One may find listed problems of real life linked to distribution. Moreover, there are explained travelling salesman problem, vehicle routing problem and its variants. This work brings an overview of different ways how to solve vehicle routing problem. In practical part, there is an analysis of distribution of real company. The concept of application is presented in the second part of this paper. This concept could reduce costs of distribution in analyzed company. Testing is aimed mainly on the variant VRPCL (Vehicle Routing Problem with Continuos Loading).

Two of the most important supply chain activities are the planning and improvement of the packing and distribution of products. These can be studied by means of Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) and Packing Problems (PPs). Analyzing these operations separately, and considering only economic aspects, may result in impractical solutions and in overlooking the environmental and social aspects of distribution activities. With the aim of addressing these issues, this thesis presents optimization models and computational solution procedures for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Loading Constraints (VRPLC), considering economic, environmental and social aspects (i.e. the Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) objectives for sustainability). It also analyzes the effect of these aspects on routing and packing decisions. The thesis starts with a systematic review of the PP, VRP and VRPLC literature, to identify commonly used objective functions and constraints. These are then linked to the three TBL dimensions. This is followed by the formulation of a VRPLC model, which considers optimization criteria and operational constraints that have not been considered simultaneously in previous studies. Although the model can be used to solve problems of small size, large-sized instances can be computationally intractable and require the use of an alternative solution method. In this regard, an efficient hybrid heuristic procedure, which combines a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure and a Clarke and Wright Savings Algorithm, is developed to solve the initial model. To specify a more relevant VRPLC application, which is efficient not only in economic terms but in environmental and social criteria as well, these initial findings are then used in the formulation of a VRPLC+TBL model. This extends the VRPLC model to consider the TBL dimensions in terms of profits, fuel consumption, safety features for driving on roads, and equitable distribution of the total payload across the vehicle fleet. Assigning the same payload to each driver, however, may not be possible and worker dissatisfaction may arise due to unfair workload assignments. Using the concepts of Simheuristics, the VRPLC+TBL model is integrated with the design of incentive contracts, to provide a mechanism to compensate workload imbalances and to further extend the social dimension. Overall, this thesis makes a significant contribution to the body of knowledge of routing and loading operations by providing comprehensive models and efficient computational solution procedures that are easy to implement. It also addresses some of the gaps identified in the area of sustainable supply chain management related to the development of quantitative models, heuristic methods, and the simultaneous consideration of all three TBL dimensions. Finally, the thesis proposes some interesting ideas for further research.