An investigation on the effects of supply chain management on improvement of firms’ financial performance

Supply chain management plays essential role on improvement of the efficiency of production systems. It helps firms meet their expectations, deliver their products on time and build a good brand. This paper performs an empirical investigation to study the effect of good relationships among various suppliers on financial figures in an Iranian automaker. The proposed study investigates the effects of seven variables including communication, cooperation, commitment, compatibility, organization climate, dependency and trust on two financial figures including return on assets and return on equities. Using structural equation modeling, the study detects that communication, dependency and trust influence positively on return on assets. In addition, communication, cooperation, trust and commitment have positive impact on return on equities

Exogenous application of ascorbic acid alleviates chilling injury in apricot (Prunus armeniaca L. cv. Shahroudi) flowers

One of the most important limiting factors in spread of apricot in Iran is late spring frost, which damages flower bud and decrease total yield of crop. It has been found that ascorbic acid (AA) plays a beneficial role during plant response to chilling and freezing stresses. To evaluate the effects of AA on alleviating of cold stress, the flower buds of Prunus armeniaca L. cv. Shahroudi were sprayed at pink cluster stage with AS at 4 levels (0, 100, 200 and 300 mg. L-1) and were then exposed to artificial cold stress (4 h at –4 °C) or without cold stress (+ 25°C). Experimental attributes including electrolyte leakage (EL) of flower buds and percentage of damage of pistil, anthers and petals to temperature treatments were determined. The results showed that at - 4°C the lowest and highest percentage of damage and EL of flower buds were observed in application of 200 and 0 mg. L-1 AA, respectively. The highest and lowest percentage of damage of flower organs and EL were obtained in application of 300 and 200 mg. L-1 AA, respectively at + 25 °C. Based on the results of this experiment, AA alleviates the negative effect of cold stress on EL and flower organ damages in apricot cv. Shahroudi, depending on the concentrations of AA used

Adaptation and evaluation of the multiple organs OSD for T2 MRI prostate segmentation

International audienceThis paper deals with the adaptation, the tuning and the evaluation of the multiple organs Optimal Surface Detection (OSD) algorithm for the T2 MRI prostate segmentation. This algorithm is initialized by first surface approximations of the prostate (obtained after a model adjustment), the bladder (obtained automatically) and the rectum (interactive geometrical model). These three organs are then segmented together in a multiple organs OSD scheme which proposes a competition between the gray level characteristics and some topological and anatomical information of these three organs. This method has been evaluated on the MICCAI Grand Challenge: Prostate MR Image Segmentation (PROMISE) 2012 training dataset

Incremental Local Linear Fuzzy Classifier in Fisher Space

Optimizing the antecedent part of neurofuzzy system is an active research topic, for which different approaches have been developed. However, current approaches typically suffer from high computational complexity or lack of ability to extract knowledge from a given set of training data. In this paper, we introduce a novel incremental training algorithm for the class of neurofuzzy systems that are structured based on local linear classifiers. Linear discriminant analysis is utilized to transform the data into a space in which linear discriminancy of training samples is maximized. The neurofuzzy classifier is then built in the transformed space, starting from the simplest form (a global linear classifier). If the overall performance of the classifier was not satisfactory, it would be iteratively refined by incorporating additional local classifiers. In addition, rule consequent parameters are optimized using a local least square approach. Our refinement strategy is motivated by LOLIMOT, which is a greedy partition algorithm for structure training and has been successfully applied in a number of identification problems. The proposed classifier is compared to several benchmark classifiers on a number of well-known datasets. The results prove the efficacy of the proposed classifier in achieving high performance while incurring low computational effort

Psychometric Properties of the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) Model for the Evaluation of Medical Ethics Education

Background: Medical ethics courses play a pivotal role in medical education, aiming to enhance the moral decision-making capabilities of medical students. As such, the evaluation of medical ethics education programs within medical faculties is of paramount importance for the improvement of these initiatives.Objectives: This study aimed to appraise the psychometric properties of the Context, Input, Process, Product (CIPP) evaluation model in medical ethics education.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 136 clerckship medical students, who were enrolled in a medical ethics course at Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran. The participants completed a 40-item researcher-made questionnaire, which was designed based on the CIPP evaluation model. The questionnaire was divided into four distinct sections, each corresponding to the context, input, process, and product aspects of the model. The face and content validity of the instrument was established by an expert panel, consisting of 10 faculty members of medical education and medical ethics. The reliability of the questionnaire was also determined by calculating its internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Moreover, the construct validity of the questionnaire was assessed via confirmatory factor analysis, using the goodness of fit indices. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 19 and Lisrel 8.8.Results: The content validity index and content validity ratio of the questionnaire were measured to be 0.97 and 0.89, respectively. The internal consistency of different sections of the questionnaire ranged between 0.71 and 0.87. In the confirmatory factor analysis, the model showed acceptable goodness of fit indices.Conclusion: In this study, the psychometric properties of the CIPP evaluation model for medical ethics education were found to be acceptable and applicable