In this paper, we develop a heuristic algorithm for solving a Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). In general, VRP is a well-known problem in which a number of vehicles are located at a central depot; each vehicle has a limited capacity and has to serve a number of geographically dispersed customers whose actual demands are known in advance. The contribution of the paper is to implement the Clarke and Wright Saving (CWS) algorithm and Iterated Greedy (IG) algorithm that used in the research efforts. Our results show that both CWS and IG combined with randomisation is a powerful algorithm for the well-known benchmark instances problem. Also, the proposed methodology is capable of finding useful trade-off solutions for the problem. We report the best solutions for 55 instances. Therefore, the results obtained are quite competitive when compared to the other algorithms found. Also, the results at best have been highly promising and useful for decision makers.

One of most significant logistics problems in the field of transportation and distribution is the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). The VRP has received particular attention for many years. In general, the problem considers the vehicles routing with limited capacity from a central depot to a set of geographically dispersed customers, where real (actual) demand of each customer is independent and known in advance. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research reported in the literature that combines CWS and IG in order to solve the CVRP. Also, safety stock and reloading/restocking have been considered in order to minimize the total cost of the problem. The contribution of the paper is to compare the CWS with IG. Also, the methodology includes two stages. In the first stage, optimal a-priori routes are generated using CWS and then the methodology has been extended by applying IG algorithm. In addition, when a vehicle capacity is exceeded, recourse actions have to be planned/designed to ensure the feasibility of solutions in case of route failure. In conclusion, our computational experiments on benchmark instances show that the IG is able to generate better solutions than CWS.

The interaction of some antibacterial fluoroquinolones (FQ), Difloxacin (DIX), Danofloxacin (DANO) and Orbifloxacin (ORBX) drugs, with ds-DNA, β-Cyclodextrin (β-CD) and hemoglobin was investigated by UV-Vis spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetric and differential pulse voltammetry. The absorption spectral and electrochemical data show that DIX or DANO or ORBX, acting an intercalator , is inserted into the base-stacking domain of the ds-DNA. Structural effects of investigated fluoroquinolones on their binding to ds-DNA were discussed. The interaction of inclusion complex of DIX- β-CD, DANO- β-CD and ORBX- β-CD with ds-DNA is reported. The nature of the process of hemoglobin and DIX, DANO and ORBX was clarified. The binding affinity and thermodynamic parameters of DIX, DANO and ORBX with the host molecule were computed. The calibration graph for the determination of ds-DNA, β-CD and hemoglobin was obtained by the decrease in the differential pulse peak current of the investigated fluoroquinolones in the presence of the host molecule.