Total Number Of Pieces Research Articles

New strategy to improve the dotted board model for solving two dimensional cutting and packing problems

In this paper, the dotted inner-fit raster (DIFR) is used to build an improved dotted board model, denoted as (IDBM). The DIFR is a new concept can be utilized to define the feasible solution matrix of each item and to define the dotted no-fit raster in the two dimensional cutting and packing problems. It is found that using DIFR to build the IDBM instead of using regular dotted board model (DBM) has many benefits, such as that IDBM can be used for any shape, not only polygon, it reduces the number of constraints in the optimization model, and it makes the number of decision variable depends on the number of piece types not on the total number of pieces. Consequently, seven instance groups; 6 from literature and one from real work, with maximum piece types of 8 and with number of pieces ranging from 24 to 60 were optimally solved in acceptable computational time by IDBM, which was impossible by older concepts.

Presence of Microplastics in Four Types of Shellfish Purchased at Fish Markets in Okayama City, Japan.

The worldwide microplastic pollution in our environment is a matter of great concern. Harmful effects of plastics have been reported in various types of organisms including murine animals. We examined the presence of microplastics in four types of shellfish purchased from fish markets in Okayama, Japan and served to the public: short-neck clam (Ruditapes philippinarum, asari in Japanese), hard-shell clam (Meretrix lusoria, hamaguri), brackishwater clam (Cyrenidae, shijimi), and oyster (Crassostrea gigas, kaki). Our analyses demonstrated that approx. 3 pieces of microplastics were present per single shellfish, based on the division of the total number of pieces of microplastic obtained from all 4 types of shellfish by the total number of shellfish examined. Since health problems in humans due to microplastics have not yet been confirmed, further examinations of the effects of ingested microplastics are needed.

Neutron activation analysis of Aegean-style IIIC pottery from the Goldman excavations at Tarsus-Gözlükule

AbstractThe appearance of Aegean-style IIIC pottery at Tarsus occured at a time of unrest and of movement of peoples resulting in part from the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces on the Greek mainland. Mycenaean Late Helladic IIIB pottery exports from mainland Greece to Cyprus and the Levant disappeared and were gradually replaced by local imitations. Eventually Aegean-style IIIC pottery appeared in the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface, in Cyprus and at various sites on the southern coast of Turkey and in the Levant. It was not exported from the Greek mainland, but seems to have been locally made at each site. A first series of neutron activation analysis (NAA) was carried out on pottery from Tarsus to determine how much of the Aegean-style 12th-century BC pottery was locally produced, how much was imported and, if imported, from whence it came. The favourable results of this first analysis gave rise to a second NAA of more Aegean-style pottery from Tarsus, bringing the total number of pieces analysed to 67. It has confirmed the local production of the pottery; the chemical group TarA is the dominant local group at Tarsus, comprising a third of the samples. A smaller group, TarB, may also be local. The analysis revealed a large number of Aegean-style IIIC imports from Cyprus from several different sites; these make up a quarter of the samples. There are a few imports from other areas, including the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface. Influence from both Cyprus and the Interface can also be seen at Tarsus in the use of some shapes and motifs. A comparison with 12th-century BC imports identified by NAA at the site of Tell Kazel (ancient Simyra) in Syria directly east of Cyprus shows imports from the same two areas.

Review of Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Anthology for Analysis and Performance (Oxford University Press, 2014)

[1] Anthologies of musical scores for use in theory classes (as distinct from music history classes) have at least a fifty-year publishing history. One of the earliest, Charles Burkhart's Anthology for Musical Analysis, appeared first in 1964, and was arranged chronologically. It included works from the late seventeenth century (Purcell) to the middle of the twentieth century (Babbitt), and was soon integrated firmly into the undergraduate curricula of many schools. After a decade or more of use, instructors began to worry that music students would know a prescribed canon of musical compositions: heavy on piano repertoire with sonata form best modeled by the piano sonatas of Beethoven (particularly the first movement of op. 53, Waldstein) and with the nineteenth-century character piece best represented by Brahms's Intermezzo in A major, op. 118, no. 2.[2] Subsequent anthologies, and later editions of the Burkhart anthology, broadened the scope of repertoire to include music by women, examples from jazz and the popular music repertoire, and an expanded chronology: as far back as plainchant and as current as 2000 and beyond. Anthologies also grouped works by form and/or contrapuntal procedure, and arranged excerpts by harmonic content. Selected anthologies and editions published in the last ten years are listed at the end of this review.[3] One of the newest anthologies is Matthew Bribitzer-Stull's Anthology for Analysis and Performance (hereafter AAP), for use in the theory classroom. The author's purposes are made clear in a Preface for the Instructor: the compositions included broaden the types of medium and genre by including a wide range of instrumental music and deemphasizing piano, string quartets, and lieder. Bribitzer-Stull believes that the vast majority of his selections can be performed live in class, requiring only the performing forces and technical abilities present among students in freshman and sophomore theory courses (xiv). Such live musical experiences can facilitate reciprocal analytical and performance insights.Example 1. Distribution of selections by dates of composition[4] Bribitzer-Stull has assembled a huge number of examples, which are presented basically in chronological order. Example 1 shows the distribution of selections by date of composition, indicating the numbered selections from the chronological list of pieces by composer, the total number of pieces (and in parentheses the number of movements or separate sections) in each time grouping, and the page numbers. There are 136 numbered selections, over half of them written since 1830. At 910 pages (877 pages of music plus appendices), AAP is certainly one of the largest anthologies available (and at over five pounds, one of the heaviest!).[5] Each composition is preceded by brief commentary, including short references to analytical procedures and connections to performance. The Preface for the Instructor (xv) suggests several ways to relate performance and analysis, and the Appendix applies these ideas to a 50-minute lesson plan for Robert Schumann's Widmung, including a performance at the beginning and end of the class interwoven with textual, formal, motivic, harmonic, and tonal analysis. Additional sections at the end of AAP include a glossary of foreign terms, a bibliography (Works Cited) of books and articles about analysis and performance (unfortunately not mentioned in the Contents, and buried on pages 884-885 under a heading of Credits, which are not included), an index of pieces by instrumentation, and a very long index of compositional materials and techniques. This last index requires double referencing: the item (term, chord type, form, etc.) is referenced by number in the chronological list of pieces by composer and by measure number, requiring the reader to refer back to the Contents for page numbers.[6] The anthology includes works by composers not normally studied in music theory classes. …

Aging and categorization: could relevant pieces of information reduce older persons' inhibitory deficit?

The goal of this study was to reduce the inhibitory deficit on the elderly by creating "optimizing conditions" in a categorization task. It was hypothesized that increasing the number of relevant pieces of information would reduce the difficulty associated with processing irrelevant information on a categorization task, since the number of relevant solutions to solve the problem would increase, while the total number of pieces of information to be processed would remain the same. This hypothesis was tested on 27 young adults and 30 elderly people using a task requiring the matching of a stimulus figure to one of the two response figures having one or more attributes in common with the stimulus. In line with previous findings, the results indicated an age-related inhibitory decline. However, consistent with the hypothesis, as the number of relevant attributes increased, the performance of elderly people improved and response times decreased, supporting the notion of latent cognitive resources.

The Effect of Play on the Creativity of Young Children During Subsequent Activity

This study investigated whether the experience of unstructured play in a preceding task may influence the creativity of young children in subsequent activity. 52 children in the age range 6-7 were randomly allocated to two groups. The first group was allowed to play with salt-dough for 25 minutes, while the other group followed a structured exercise involving the copying of text from the board. All children were then asked to produce a collage of a creature, using a controlled range of tissue-paper materials. The procedure was then repeated some days later, with the two groups experiencing the other preceding task. 10 judges (7 trainee teachers and 3 lecturers) judged the creative quality of the work arising. The range of colours and total number of pieces used by each child in each collage was also recorded. Analysis of the results revealed a significant positive effect of preceding task upon creativity and range of colours.

Estudio tecnomorfológico de la industria lítica de Ambrona (Soria)

In spite of the plentiful bibliography existent regarding the Pleistocene deposits of Ambrona, its lithic industry has been poorly documented. This fact becomes more marked in the «Upper Complex» of this site, where only a list with the total number of pieces contained in its sequence has been published. This paper tries to make up for this deficiency characterizing the lithic industry found in this important Pleistocene site in a technomorphological framework and finally providing a setting for these lithic series in the Acheulian period of the Iberian Peninsula, «The Lower Complex», attributed to Middle Pleistocene with Acheulian artefacts, is situated in the El Sartalejo, La Maya II, Aridos or Torralba «orbit», and the «Upper Complex», attributed to Upper Middle Pleistocene or even to a latter moment with final Acheulian artefacts, is like La Maya I or phase III of Atapuerca.

Bin packing: On optimizing the number of pieces packed

We consider bin-packing variations related to the well-studied problem of maximizing the total number of pieces packed into a fixed set of bins. We show that, when the objective is to minimize the total number of pieces packed subject to the constraint that no unpacked piece will fit, no polynomial-time relative approximation algorithm exists (unless, of course,P=NP). That is, we prove that it isNP-hard to guarantee packing no more than a constant multiple of the optimal number of pieces, for any constant. This appears to be the first bin-packing problem for which this property has been demonstrated. Furthermore, this result also holds for the allied packing variant which seeks to minimize the maximum number of pieces packed in any single bin. We find the situation to be markedly better for the problem of maximizing the minimum number of pieces in any bin. If all bins possess the same capacity, we prove that the familiar SPF rule is an absolute approximation algorithm with additive constant 1, and can therefore be regarded as a best possible heuristic. For the more general and difficult case in which bin capacities may differ, it turns out that SPF fails to qualify as even a relative approximation algorithm. However, we devise an implementation of the well-known FFD heuristic, which we show to be a relative approximation algorithm, yielding a worst-case performance ratio of 1/2 with additive constant 0. Moreover, we prove that (unlessP=NP) no polynomial-time algorithm can guarantee a higher ratio without sacrificing the additive constant.