http://www.hindawi.com The latest articles from Hindawi Publishing Corporation © 2013 , Hindawi Publishing Corporation . All rights reserved. Mon, 13 May 2013 15:02:51 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/optimization/2013/519180/ We consider the case of a two-stage serial supply chain system. This supply chain system involves a single vendor who supplies a single buyer with a single product. The vendor’s production rate is assumed finite. In addition, the demand at the buyer is assumed deterministic. In order to coordinate their replenishment policies and jointly optimize their operational costs, the two supply chain partners fully share their relevant information. For this purpose, we develop an integrated inventory replenishment model assuming linear and fixed backorders costs. Then, we use a hybrid geometric-algebraic method to drive the optimal replenishment policy and the minimum supply chain total cost in a closed form. Mohamed E. Seliaman Copyright © 2013 Mohamed E. Seliaman. All rights reserved. Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:47:28 +0000 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/optimization/2013/989135/ The property of self-similarity, recursive irregularity, and space filling capability of fractal antennas makes it useful for various applications in wireless communication, including multiband miniaturized antenna designs. In this paper, an effort has been made to use the metamaterial structures in conjunction with the fractal patch antenna, which resonates at six different frequencies covering both C and X band. Two different types of square SRR are loaded on the fractal antenna for this purpose. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used for optimization of these metamaterial structures. The optimized metamaterial structures, after loading upon, show significant increase in performance parameters such as bandwidth, gain, and directivity. Balamati Choudhury, Sangeetha Manickam, and R. M. Jha Copyright © 2013 Balamati Choudhury et al. All rights reserved.