Integrated decision support framework for enhancing disaster preparedness:A pilot application in Indonesia

The combination of climate change, rampant urbanization, political and social instabilities, is expected to increase the frequency and ferocity of humanitarian crises in the near future. Unpredictability of demand, narrow lead times, highly chaotic and rapidly changing circumstances demand for a different approach to disaster management. The traditional event-based approach to manage natural hazards is, in fact, no longer economically viable, and it should be transformed into a risk-based management slant with a strong emphasis on planning, in preparedness. This paper is an attempt in that direction and proposes an integration of multi-criteria decision-making, network optimization, and discrete event simulation, to address inventory prepositioning for improving efficiency, effectiveness, and agility of relief chains. While humanitarian logistics has been traditionally relying on the sole practical experience of practitioners, this paper makes a case for a paradigm shift as it proposed an interdisciplinary approach integrating that practical experience with analytical and dynamic simulation methods that have been widely applied in the commercial supply chain arena. A real-life case study about Indonesia, one of the countries with the highest disaster risk exposure on a global scale, has been investigated with the use of anyLogistix software. The findings of this work depict the ideal network configuration along with transportation and inventory policies for the case at hand.</p

Metal nanoparticles: The protective shield against virus infection.

Re-emergence of resistance in different pathogens including viruses are the major cause of human disease and death, which is posing a serious challenge to the medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnological sectors. Though many efforts have been made to develop drug and vaccines against re-emerging viruses, researchers are continuously engaged in the development of novel, cheap and broad-spectrum antiviral agents, not only to fight against viruses but also to act as a protective shield against pathogens attack. Current advancement in nanotechnology provides a novel platform for the development of potential and effective agents by modifying the materials at nanolevel with remarkable physicochemical properties, high surface area to volume ratio and increased reactivity. Among metal nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles have strong antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral potential to boost the host immunity against pathogen attack. Nevertheless, the interaction of silver nanoparticles with viruses is a largely unexplored field. The present review discusses antiviral activity of the metal nanoparticles, especially the mechanism of action of silver nanoparticles, against different viruses such HSV, HIV, HBV, MPV, RSV, etc. It is also focused on how silver nanoparticles can be used in therapeutics by considering their cytotoxic level, to avoid human and environmental risks