Soft computing for hazardous waste routing in Malaysia: a review

Nowadays, a significant number of researchers are focusing on utilizing soft computing approaches to address the issue of scheduling in applications concerned with hazardous waste management. In Malaysia, there is thoughtless awareness of the management of hazardous waste, even though the production of wastes in hazardous domains at the industrial and domestic levels has been rising lately. According to previous research findings, the location routing problem (LRP) can be designated as one of the models closer to the actual situation, evaluating the most suitable and optimal location for establishing facilities and utilizing transportation for pick-up and distribution. Recent studies have focused on enhancing the LRP model, and its methodologies approach to solve the waste management problem in hazardous domains. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the better promising and practicable mathematical model of LRP and its methodology approach is discussed, as well as an analysis of the publishing pattern and the trend of research over the preceding five years and more, as retrieved from the web of science (WoS) database. In conclusion, this research is significant in ensuring the effectiveness of reliable mathematical model development and suitable methodologies in the future for solving hazardous waste management problems

Preparing for out of hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: A GIS scenario-modeling approach

This study employed location-allocation modeling and a geographic information system (GIS) to study the current placement of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in relationship to neighborhoods in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia, and to determine the optimal locations for additional AEDs in the city. Using GIS to mathematically locate additional healthcare facilities for the placement of AEDs is more reliable than to select them using informed guesses. The objective of this research was to elaborate a mathematical and GIS model for placing AED devices so that people who need to use these devices in the City of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, can access them within a time frame of three minutes or less, which is the international standard for such accessibility. The research employed street blocks as demand points; existing healthcare facilities, mosques, and schools as supply points; and the maximum coverage algorithm to model optimal locations for AED devices. Models were run for both vehicle and pedestrian travel times. Model results of current conditions indicated that 75% of household blocks were covered when vehicles were used to access AED sites, as compared to 9% of people when pedestrian travel to an AED is considered. Introduction of 1,371 mosques and 34 community colleges and universities as additional supply points for AEDs improved coverage to 94% for vehicular access, but only 34% for pedestrian traffic. Although mosques are considered to be focus points for Muslim communities, other facilities including, but not limited to, police stations, malls, primary and secondary schools, and playgrounds should be used to gain wider coverage. In addition, cluster analysis should be employed to avoid selecting AED supply points that are too close to each other and which are unlikely to improve accessibility. The study succeeded in elaborating a framework for conceptualizing the relationship between vehicular and pedestrian access to AEDs. It also demonstrates how GIS-based location-allocation modeling can be used for efficient placement of AEDs. The broad conceptual framework for AED placement used in this study has applicability to other countries in the Middle East

Sustainable waste solutions: Optimizing location-allocation of 3R waste management sites in Gondokusuman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia through multi-maximal covering location approach

Developing a Multi-Maximal Covering Location Model (MMCLM) for waste management in Gondokusuman Sub-district, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, is urgently needed. The closure of the Piyungan landfill has resulted in the need for additional Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Waste Management Sites (3R-WMSs) to reduce waste that the landfill cannot accommodate. The primary objective of this model is to optimize the location and allocation of demand volume nodes, representing the resident population, to a specific set of 3R-WMS. These demand nodes are located at different distances from 3R-WMSs, including high and low coverage areas. The research in the Gondokusuman Sub-district employed MMCLM with facility capacity constraints and was developed using mixed integer linear programming methodology. The study identified five optimal locations for a 3R-WMS establishment that comprehensively cover all demand nodes (15301) and population clusters (45903) in the sub-district, including both high (5085) and low coverage areas (10216). This research represents a significant step forward in developing a sustainable environment by ensuring easy access to reducing, reusing, and recycling-based waste management facilities for residents

A study into Healthcare Service Location Problems, Location and Allocation in the Inanda area

Inanda is a predominantly rural area located on the northern coast of the province of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. It is bordered by the areas of Phoenix, Verulam and Tongaat. In the context of healthcare accessibility in the Inanda area, the research aimed at investigating the problem in service location planning. This was done by investigating level of accessibility to existing healthcare facilities available to the residents of Inanda. Following the classification of accessibility problems, recommendations were made on where the facility locations can be improved or expanded to provide better accessibility in terms of location-allocation. Literature that has been reviewed focused on geographic location, GIS and accessibility measures, spatial accessibility, models used to test accessibility, service location planning and accessibility measures and metrics so as to provide a background and precedent for the service location planning carried out in the research. The research aimed to confirm that accessibility to the healthcare facilities is indeed a problem and to propose alternative strategies to overcome the accessibility problems identified. The access to healthcare service locations is dependent on a number of factors. Some of these factors include travel time and distance, available capacity at facilities, existing road network, and provision or lack thereof of an efficient public transport system. This accessibility to the health service locations was assessed by using available GIS information on healthcare facilities and using accessibility analysis to identify problems in terms of the services location as well as additional location-allocation of current and additional facilities. The analysis was based on the assumption that all service locations have unlimited capacity. Flowmap was used as the tool to analyse the GIS data and conduct various accessibility models. The different models were Expansion Model Analysis, Relocation Model Analysis, Catchment Area and Clinic Allocation Analysis, Catchment Profile, Market share of Supply Locations, Regular Proximity Count, Average Distance in Competition, Proximity Count in Competition, Lowest Mean Trip Cost Alternate, Second Best Catchment Distance and Pareto Cover Set. The results of the research showed that while the locations of the existing healthcare facilities are not ideal, most are accessible to the majority of the Inanda residents. The information on actual capacity available at each of the locations was not available at the time of the research being carried out and would be worthwhile to research in the future

A heuristic approach to solve the preventive health care problem with budget and congestion constraints

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Soheil Davari, Kemal Kilic, and Siamak Naderi, ‘A heuristic approach to solve the preventive health care problem with budget and congestion constraints’, Applied Mathematics and Computation, Vol. 276, pp. 442-453, March 2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amc.2015.11.073. This manuscript version is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License CC BY NC-ND 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.Preventive health care is of utmost importance to governments since they can make massive savings on health care expenditure and promote the well-being of the society. Preventive care includes many services such as cancer screenings, vaccinations, hepatitis screenings, and smoking cessation programs. Despite the benefits of these services, their uptake is not satisfactory in many countries in the world. This can be attributed to financial barriers, social issues., and other factors. One of the most important barriers for preventive care is accessibility to proper services, which is a function of various qualitative and quantitative factors such as the distance to travel, waiting time, vicinity of facilities to other attractive facilities (such as shopping malls), and even the cleanliness of the facilities. Statistics show that even a small improvement in people’s participation can save massive amounts of money for any government and improve the well-being of the people in a society. This paper addresses the problem of designing a preventive health care network considering impatient clients, and budget constraints. The objective is to maximize the accessibility of services to people. We model the problem as a mixed-integer programming problem with budget constraints, and congestion considerations. An efficient variable neighborhood search procedure is proposed and computational experiments are performed on a large set of instances.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Addressing decisions about new hospitals’ siting: a multidimensional evaluation approach

Background. Site selection for urban facilities is a crucial topic in planning decision processes for the several side effects they produce and the multiple criteria involved, especially for healthcare facilities. Nevertheless, the location problem has been ignored by most of the existing evaluation systems. Methods. Starting from a deep literature review and the analysis of hospitals in 10 European cities, the paper proposes an evaluation system divided into four macro-areas (Functional quality, Location quality, Environmental quality, Economical aspects), each in turn composed by criteria and sub-criteria. Results. The evaluation system has been applied for the site selection of “La Città della alute” in Milan, Italy. Furthermore, the ShOS (Selection hospitals’ Site) Evaluation Tool has been defined, with the aim of assessing the land suitability for new healthcare structures. Conclusion. The ShOS evaluation tool improves the transparency and robustness of the decision-making process and it could be broadly applied

17-06 Public vs Private Transportation Network Accessibility and Maternal-Infant Health Outcomes Across the Urban-Rural Boundary in Kalamazoo County, Michigan

This project is twofold. The first part of the project deals specifically with the benefits of multimodal transportation modeling to understand community structure of public health access in a community. Maternal risk and infant outcomes are examined in Kalamazoo County, MI with respect to transportation network accessibility by public transit and private vehicle across the urban-rural continuum. Infants born to mothers just outside the urban core had a higher rate of poor outcomes. Maternal risk factors, by contrast, were associated with the accessible rural areas – areas outside the city proper, but within 30 minutes by car to services. When as much variability as possible (departure time, routes, modes, time of day) was included in the model, very detailed community structure information emerged. This structural information is not specifically causal, but differences in behaviors and use of services, as well as differences in urban poverty and rural poverty were apparent. The second part of the project considered raster-based methods to provide insights into siting intervention locations at efficient and equitable locations for repeating cases of risk – in this case, repeating cases of sexually transmitted infections. The results provide metrics for decision makers to compare intervention locations by efficiency and equity across multimodal optimization

Biotechnology policy implementation from a systems perspective

This study utilizes Viable System Model (VSM) in diagnosing one policy implementation call Malaysian Biotechnology policy. The policy implementation is viewed from the innovation theory, which regards research and development (R&D) as the core of innovation commercialization, which in turn become the nucleus for a firm’s growth. Subsequently, the growth of firms as a group can lead to an industry’s development. This study conducted interviews with the agencies involved in the policy implementation and took advantage of the extensive information relating to the agencies that are available in the public domain, by using content analysis as the study’s methodology. This study enhances the understanding on the full use of VSM; it provides policy makers and implementers a guide in improving existing systems or designing new ones, while researchers are afforded an applicable theoretical conceptualization from a systems thinking perspective