A fuzzy MCDM model with objective and subjective weights for evaluating service quality in hotel industries

This paper presents a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) model by integrating both subjective and objective weights for ranking and evaluating the service quality in hotels. The objective method selects weights of criteria through mathematical calculation, while the subjective method uses judgments of decision makers. In this paper, we use a combination of weights obtained by both approaches in evaluating service quality in hotel industries. A real case study that considered ranking five hotels is illustrated. Examples are shown to indicate capabilities of the proposed method

Developing a DEMATEL method to prioritize distribution centers in supply chain

During the past two decades, there have been significant numbers of studies focusing on supply chain management for evaluating important factors on the success of a supply chain program. In this paper, we present a method to prioritize the locations of distribution centers in a supply chain. The proposed model of this paper uses balanced scorecard (BSC) to categorize the most important attributes affecting the location of distribution centers and the attributes are ranked based on decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The implementation of the proposed model of this paper is also applied for a real-world case study of oil company and the results are analyzed under different scenarios

A futures study on the quality of life from the point of view of Iranian youth / Sina Saeedy … [et al.]

Quality of life and satisfaction with life as tightly interconnected concepts have become of much importance in the urbanism era. No doubt, it is one of the most important goals of every human society to enhance a citizen’s quality of life and to increase their satisfaction with life. However, there are many signs which demonstrate the low level of life satisfaction of Iranian citizens especially among the youth. Thus, considering the temporal concept of life satisfaction, this research aims to make a futures study in this field. Therefore, using a mixed model and employing research methods from futures studies, life satisfaction among the students of the University of Tehran were measured and their views on this subject investigated. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed together in order to test the hypotheses and to address the research questions on the youth discontentment with quality of life. Findings showed that the level of life satisfaction among students is relatively low and their image of the future is not positive and not optimistic. These views were elicited and discussed in the social, economic, political, environmental and technological perspectives

Effect of aromatherapy on anxiety and pain in patients undergoing cholecystectomy

Background and aims: Aromatherapy means application of concentrated essences from different types of plants (such as flowers) for treatment of different types of diseases. Aromatherapy works for stress, anxiety, psychosomatic problems, muscular and rheumatic pains, gastrointestinal problems, menopause and postpartum depression. The present study aimed to study the effect of aromatherapy on anxiety and pain in patients undergoing cholecystectomy. Methods: This is a single-blinded clinical trial study which was conducted with participation of 60 patients undergoing cholecystectomy in Sina Treatment Center, Tabriz, Iran in 2012-2013. The patients were randomly assigned using table of random numbers. In intervention group, the patients inhaled 10 drops of rose water with 12 concentration for three minutes 8 and 16 hours after surgery. For control group, routine care continued in the ward. The data were analyzed by SPSS using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics, one-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s test). Results: Comparison of changes in pain and anxiety scores between the two group indicated that the developed changes in pain and anxiety level (mean relief of pain and anxiety 8 and 16 hours after surgery) in the aromatherapy group was significantly different from the control group (P<0.001) and the level of relief of pain and anxiety was higher in aromatherapy group than the control group 8 and 16 hours after surgery (P<0.001). Conclusion: The findings indicated the positive effect of rose water-mediated aromatherapy on relief of pain and anxiety in patients 8 and 16 hours after surgery. Aromatherapy could be used as a cheap, noninvasive, complication-free, and non-pharmacologic nursing care

Prevalence of smoking in northwest Iran: a meta-analysis

Background: Tobacco addiction is a major cause of preventable death worldwide. Thus, efforts to eliminate its use have the potential of producing significant health benefits. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of cigarette smoking among people in the age range of 15 to 64. The specific objective of this meta-analysis was to provide valid data that policy makers can use to make evidence-based decisions. Methods: To determine the prevalence of smoking among the adult population in northwest Iran, we used reports published by the surveillance system used to assess the risk factors for non-communicable diseases in different provinces in northwest Iran for the years 2004 and 2006-2009. Several variables were extracted, including the years of study, gender, ages, and smoking prevalence. Based on the heterogeneity of the results, we used fixed or random effects models to estimate the overall prevalence of cigarette smoking. The analyses were performed using Stata 11 software. Results: A total of 28,436 subjects (14,248 males and 14,188 females) in five age groups, i.e., 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, and 55-64, were interviewed. Meta-analysis in men showed that, across the age groups, the lowest prevalence was 22.9%, the highest prevalence was 26.5%, and the average prevalence was 24.7%. Among women, the lowest prevalence was 0.3%, the highest prevalence was 0.8%, and the average prevalence was 0.5%. Conclusion: We found that approximately one-fourth of males in the age range of 15-64 in northwest Iran smoked cigarettes daily. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct effective interventions to reduce the prevalence of addiction to tobacco in this area

Sustaining the National Spinal Cord Injury Registry of Iran (NSCIR-IR) in a Regional Center: Challenges and Solutions

Background: The National Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury Registry in Iran (NSCIR-IR), was implemented initially in three hospitals as a pilot phase from 11 Oct 2015 to 19 Jun 2016 and has been active in eight centers from 19 Jun 2016. Poursina Hospital, a trauma care referral center in Rasht, Guilan Province of Iran is one of the registry sites, and has been involved in registering eligible patients since 1 Jan 2016. This study aimed to identify the challenges and solutions for sustaining the NSCIR-IR in a regional center. Methods: This was a mixed-methods study. For the quantitative analysis, a retrospective observational design was used to measure case capture or case identification rate, mapping cases in the registry against those eligible for registry inclusion amongst the register of hospital admissions. For the qualitative component, data was collected using focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, followed by thematic analysis. Results: From 19 Jun 2016 to 24 Jan 2018, the proportion of case capture (case identification rate) was 17%. The median time between case identification and data entry to the system was 30.5 d (range: 2 to 193 d). Thematic analysis identified a lack of trained human resources as the most important cause of low case identification rate and delay in data completion. Conclusion: Recruitment and education to increase trained human resources are needed to improve case capture, the timeliness of data input and registry sustainability in a regional participating site

A hybrid autotuning framework for performance optimization of heterogeneous systems

LAUREA MAGISTRALELa crescente complessit`a del moderno design hardware multi e manycore rende l’ottimizzazione delle prestazioni delle applicazioni un compito difficile. Mentre l’aiuto della sintonizzazione automatica conclusa con successo `e stata la riduzione dei tempi di esecuzione, sono emersi i nuovi obiettivi di prestazione che comprendono il consumo di energia, il costo computazionale e l’area. Gli approcci di ottimizzazione automatica spaziano dal relativamente non intrusivo (ad esempio, utilizzando le opzioni del compilatore) alle estese modifiche del codice che tentano di sfruttare specifiche caratteristiche architettoniche. Le tecniche intrusive spesso portano a modifiche del codice che non sono facilmente reversibili, il che pu`o avere un impatto negativo sulla leggibilitA ̃ , sulla manutenibilit`a e sulle prestazioni su diverse architetture. Pertanto, sono necessari metodi piu` sofisticati in grado di sfruttare e identificare i trade-off tra questi obiettivi. Introduciamo una struttura di ottimizzazione ibrida per ottimizzare il codice per due criteri principali che si confrontano reciprocamente, ad es. Tempo di esecuzione e utilizzo delle risorse in diversi livelli, a partire dal codice sorgente originale fino ad un livello di sintesi di alto livello. Sono coinvolti diversi strumenti e ottimizzazioni efficaci, ovvero il framework OpenTuner per la creazione di autotuner di programmi multi-obiettivo specifici del dominio, il sistema di ottimizzazione empirica basato su Annotation chiamato Orio e uno strumento di sintesi di alto livello denominato LegUp sono i componenti di ottimizzazione del nostro framework . Il framework mira a migliorare sia le prestazioni che la produttivit`a attraverso una procedura semi-automatica. La nostra catena supporta l’ottimizzazione del codice indipendente dall’ architettura e l’architettura specifica e pu`o essere adattata a qualsiasi architettura di piattaforma hardware. Dopo aver identificato i parametri di ottimizzazione dell’applicazione tramite OpenTuner, passiamo il codice an- notato come input a Orio che genera molte versioni ottimizzate e restituisce la versione con le migliori prestazioni. Inoltre, LLVM esegue un numero di passaggi di ottimizzazione in base al risultato di Orio e, infine, LegUp utilizzer`a l’output LLVM per la sintesi di una determinata piattaforma target aggiungendo le sue ottimizzazioni. Dimostriamo che il nostro approccio automatizzato pu`o migliorare i tempi di esecuzione e l’utilizzo delle risorse su HLS attraverso diversi livelli di ottimizzazione.The increasing complexity of modern multi and many-core hardware design makes performance tuning of the applications a difficult task. While the aid of the successful past automatic tuning has been the execution time minimization, the new performance objectives have emerged comprise of energy consumption, computational cost, and area. Automatic Tuning approaches range from the relatively non-intrusive (e.g., by using compiler options) to extensive code modifications that attempt to exploit specific architectural features. Intrusive techniques often result in code changes that are not easily reversible, which can negatively impact readability, maintainability, and performance on different architectures. Therefore, more sophisticated methods capable of exploiting and identifying the trade-offs among these goals are required. We introduce a Hybrid Optimization framework to optimize the code for two main mutually competing criteria, e.g., execution time and resource usage in several layers starting from the original source code to a high-level synthesis level. Several effective tools and optimizations are involved, i.e., OpenTuner framework for building domain-specific multi-objective program autotuners, Annotation-based empirical tuning system called Orio, and a high-level synthesis tool named LegUp are the optimization components of our framework. The framework aims at improving both performance and productivity over a semi-automated procedure. Our chain supports both architecture-independent and architecture-specific code optimization and can be adapted to any hardware platform architecture. After identifying the application’s optimization parameters through OpenTuner, we pass the annotated code as input to Orio which generates many tuned versions and returns the version with the best performance. Furthermore, LLVM performs a number of optimization passes according to the Orio’s result and finally, LegUp will use the LLVM output to synthesis for a particular target platform adding its optimizations. We show that our automated approach can improve the execution time and resource usage on HLS through different optimization levels

ECL sensor for selective determination of citrate ions as a prostate cancer biomarker using polymer of intrinsic microporosity-1 nanoparticles/nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots

Urine citrate analysis is relevant in the screening and monitoring of patients with prostate cancer and calcium nephrolithiasis. A sensitive, fast, easy, and low-maintenance electrochemiluminescence (ECL) method with conductivity detection for the analysis of citrate in urine is developed and validated by employing polymer of intrinsic microporosity-1 nanoparticles/nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (nano-PIM-1/N-CQDs). Using optimum conditions, the sensor was applied in ECL experiments in the presence of different concentrations of citrate ions. The ECL signals were quenched gradually by the increasing citrate concentration. The linear range of the relationship between the logarithm of the citrate concentration and ΔECL (ECL of blank − ECL of sample) was obtained between 1.0 × 10 −7 M and 5.0 × 10 −4 M. The limit of detection (LOD) was calculated to be 2.2 × 10 −8 M (S/N = 3). The sensor was successfully applied in real samples such as human serum and patient urine. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].</p

An Analytical Model for Estimating the Vibration Frequency of Structures Located on the Pile Group in the Case of Floating Piles and End-bearing Pile

Exact estimation of vibration fundamental period of structures plays a vital role in their designing procedure. The proposition of a relatively exact expression which considers the effects of a pile group on the fundamental period of the structures was of less interest to previous researchers. This study aims to propose an analytical model and expression so as to estimate the free vibration period of the structures located on a pile group. To reach the objectives of this study, several numerical analyses has been carried out using the method of equivalent spring which takes into account the effects of soil-pile-structure interaction on the fundamental period of the structures. In the next step of the study the effects of a pile group on the fundamental period of the structures have been analyzed analytically. In this analytical study two cases have been considered for the piles which are end-bearing and floating piles. In the case of floating piles a five degrees-of-freedom analytical model and its corresponding expression have been proposed considering the soil-pile-structure system. The numerical modelling has been performed using the direct method due to the neglect of the soil in analytical expression and the results have been compared with those of the proposed analytical expression. The soil mass participation coefficient (λ) has been obtained using the discrepancy between the results of the two different methods to modify the analytical expression. In the case of end-bearing piles an analytical model with three degrees-of-freedom and its corresponding expressions has been proposed. Then the soil has been neglected and a new analytical expression has been proposed using the mass participation coefficients adopted from other researches to calculate the fundamental period of the structures. The comparison between the results of the proposed expression and those of case and numerical studies confirms that the proposed expressions benefit from a relative accuracy and can be used as an initial criterion in designing procedure