Mixed integer programming in production planning with backlogging and setup carryover : modeling and algorithms

This paper proposes a mixed integer programming formulation for modeling the capacitated multi-level lot sizing problem with both backlogging and setup carryover. Based on the model formulation, a progressive time-oriented decomposition heuristic framework is then proposed, where improvement and construction heuristics are effectively combined, therefore efficiently avoiding the weaknesses associated with the one-time decisions made by other classical time-oriented decomposition algorithms. Computational results show that the proposed optimization framework provides competitive solutions within a reasonable time

Progesterone Receptor induces bcl-x expression through intragenic binding sites favoring RNA Polymerase II elongation

Steroid receptors were classically described for regulating transcription by binding to target gene promoters. However, genome-wide studies reveal that steroid receptors-binding sites are mainly located at intragenic regions. To determine the role of these sites, we examined the effect of pro- gestins on the transcription of the bcl-x gene, where only intragenic progesterone receptor-binding sites (PRbs) were identified. We found that in response to hormone treatment, the PR is recruited to these sites along with two histone acetyltransferases CREB-binding protein (CBP) and GCN5, leading to an increase in histone H3 and H4 acetylation and to the binding of the SWI/SNF complex. Concomitant, a more relaxed chromatin was detected along bcl-x gene mainly in the regions sur- rounding the intragenic PRbs. PR also mediated the recruitment of the positive elongation factor pTEFb, favoring RNA polymerase II (Pol II) elongation activity. Together these events promoted the re-dis- tribution of the active Pol II toward the 30-end of the gene and a decrease in the ratio between proximal and distal transcription. These results suggest a novel mechanism by which PR regulates gene ex- pression by facilitating the proper passage of the polymerase along hormone-dependent genes.Fil: Bertucci, Paola Yanina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Nacht, Ana Silvina. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; España. Centro de Regulación Genómica; EspañaFil: Alló, Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; ArgentinaFil: Rocha Viegas, Luciana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Ballaré, Cecilia. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; España. Centro de Regulación Genómica; EspañaFil: Soronellas, Daniel. Centro de Regulación Genómica; España. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; EspañaFil: Castellano, Giancarlo. Centro de Regulación Genómica; España. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; EspañaFil: Zaurin, Roser. Centro de Regulación Genómica; España. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; EspañaFil: Kornblihtt, Alberto Rodolfo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Beato, Miguel. Centro de Regulación Genómica; España. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; EspañaFil: Vicent, Guillermo. Centro de Regulación Genómica; España. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; EspañaFil: Pecci, Adali. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias; Argentin

Identification of glucose transporters in Aspergillus nidulans

o characterize the mechanisms involved in glucose transport, in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, we have identified four glucose transporter encoding genes hxtB-E. We evaluated the ability of hxtB-E to functionally complement the Saccharomyces cerevisiae EBY.VW4000 strain that is unable to grow on glucose, fructose, mannose or galactose as single carbon source. In S. cerevisiae HxtB-E were targeted to the plasma membrane. The expression of HxtB, HxtC and HxtE was able to restore growth on glucose, fructose, mannose or galactose, indicating that these transporters accept multiple sugars as a substrate through an energy dependent process. A tenfold excess of unlabeled maltose, galactose, fructose, and mannose were able to inhibit glucose uptake to different levels (50 to 80 %) in these s. cerevisiae complemented strains. Moreover, experiments with cyanide-m-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP), strongly suggest that hxtB, -C, and –E mediate glucose transport via active proton symport. The A. nidulans ΔhxtB, ΔhxtC or ΔhxtE null mutants showed ~2.5-fold reduction in the affinity for glucose, while ΔhxtB and -C also showed a 2-fold reduction in the capacity for glucose uptake. The ΔhxtD mutant had a 7.8-fold reduction in affinity, but a 3-fold increase in the capacity for glucose uptake. However, only the ΔhxtB mutant strain showed a detectable decreased rate of glucose consumption at low concentrations and an increased resistance to 2-deoxyglucose.The authors would like to thank the Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico, Brazil for financial support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Antiproliferative activity of extracts of Euphorbia tirucalli L (Euphorbiaceae) from three regions of Brazil

Purpose: To investigate Euphorbia tirucalli extract for probable geographic variations in its antiproliferative activity.Methods: The aerial parts of E. tirucalli were collected in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, Pará, Minas Gerais and Santa Catarina. The 70 % ethanol extract was obtained according to the procedure described in Brazilian Homeopathic Pharmacopeia. The antiproliferative activity of extracts, in concentrations of 62, 125, 250, and 500 μg mL-1, was tested against leukemia (HL-60), lymphoma (Daudi) and melanoma (B16F10) cell lines using methyl thiazol tetrazolium assay (MTT). Phytochemical analysis were carried out using High-performance liquid chromatography-diode array (HPLC-UV-DAD) and electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI(-) FT-ICR MS) assays.Results: There was significant regional variability in the cytotoxicity of E. tirucalli extracts in a dosedependent manner. The extracts had similar activity towards leukemia cell line HL-60, decreasing cell viability to about 60 – 70 %. The extract showed the presence of ellagitannins, flavonoids, veracylglucan, and acid triterpenes as the major compounds.Conclusion: While the results support the ethnopharmacological use of E. tirucalli throughout Brazil, regional quantitative differences found in some classes of secondary metabolites may explain the variations observed in antitumor activity.Keywords: Aveloz, Cancer, Cytotoxicity, Antiproliferative, Ethnopharmacological, Traditional medicin

Tabla de vida de Eurhizococcus colombianus Jakubski (Hemiptera: Margarodidae) en cuatro estructuras vegetales

The ground pearl Eurhizococcus colombianus Jakubski is a pest of economic importance in several Colombian fruittrees, mainly blackberry. For the establishment of any management program it is necessary to know some biological characteristics of this insect such as population dynamics, natural relationships and mortality factors. It is possible to predict the population dynamic through insect rearing and the construction of the life table, which summarizes the data of the population's vitality. The effect of four plant structures, stems and fruits of fig, bulbs of beetroot and tuber of yellow potato, on the life cycle, survival, life table and fertility was determined. The nymphs did not develope on fig fruits and tubers of the yellow potato because of the structures decomposition. On fig stems and beetroot the complete development of the insect's cycle was achieved, finding differences in the duration of the nymphal stage, the longitudinal measure of the cyst at the age of 110 days and the survival. With the life table data and fertility it was determined that this specie under laboratories condition presents a life cycle between 183-239 days, a low fertility, low power of multiplication and low population's growth. The data indicate that fig stems are suitable for rearing E. colombianus and that the management measures should be implemented when the pest is at the stage of egg and movable nymph.La Perla de tierra Eurhizococcus colombianus Jakubski es una plaga de importancia económica en varios frutales de Colombia, principalmente, la mora. Para establecer cualquier manejo es necesario conocer algunas características biológicas del insecto, como la dinámica poblacional, las relaciones naturales y los factores de mortalidad. Es posible predecir la dinámica poblacional, a través de la cría de insectos y la construcción de tablas de vida, que resumen los datos vitales de una poblacional. El efecto de cuatro estructuras vegetales, tallos y frutos de brevo, bulbos de remolacha y tubérculos de papa criolla, en el ciclo de vida, supervivencia, la tabla de vida y fertilidad fueron determinados. Las ninfas no se desarrollaron en los frutos de brevo y tubérculos de papa criolla por descomposición de las estructuras. En los tallos de brevo y en la remolacha, se logró obtener el desarrollo completo del insecto, encontrando diferencias en la duración del estado de ninfa, la medida longitudinal de los quistes a los 110 días y la supervivencia. Con los datos de la tabla de vida y fertilidad, se determinó que esta especie, en condiciones de laboratorio, presenta un ciclo de vida entre 183-239 días, una baja fecundidad, un poder de multiplicación bajo y un crecimiento poblacional bajo. Los datos indican que los tallos de brevo son adecuados para la cría de E. colombianus y que las medidas de control se deben implementar cuando la plaga se encuentra en las etapas de huevo y ninfa móvil

Avaliação do Método de Multiple Imputation no Preenchimento de Falhas de Fluxos de Energia sobre uma Área de Cana-de-Açúcar

Avaliação do método de Multiple Imputation nopreenchimento de falhas de fluxos de energia sobre umaárea de cana-de-açúca

A Comparison of Machine Learning Methods for Cross-Domain Few-Shot Learning

We present an empirical evaluation of machine learning algorithms in cross-domain few-shot learning based on a fixed pre-trained feature extractor. Experiments were performed in five target domains (CropDisease, EuroSAT, Food101, ISIC and ChestX) and using two feature extractors: a ResNet10 model trained on a subset of ImageNet known as miniImageNet and a ResNet152 model trained on the ILSVRC 2012 subset of ImageNet. Commonly used machine learning algorithms including logistic regression, support vector machines, random forests, nearest neighbour classification, naïve Bayes, and linear and quadratic discriminant analysis were evaluated on the extracted feature vectors. We also evaluated classification accuracy when subjecting the feature vectors to normalisation using p-norms. Algorithms originally developed for the classification of gene expression data—the nearest shrunken centroid algorithm and LDA ensembles obtained with random projections—were also included in the experiments, in addition to a cosine similarity classifier that has recently proved popular in few-shot learning. The results enable us to identify algorithms, normalisation methods and pre-trained feature extractors that perform well in cross-domain few-shot learning. We show that the cosine similarity classifier and ℓ² -regularised 1-vs-rest logistic regression are generally the best-performing algorithms. We also show that algorithms such as LDA yield consistently higher accuracy when applied to ℓ² -normalised feature vectors. In addition, all classifiers generally perform better when extracting feature vectors using the ResNet152 model instead of the ResNet10 model