Evaluation of Cost-Effectiveness Criteria in Supply Chain Management: Case Study

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and prioritize the proposed cost-effectiveness criteria in supply chain management using fuzzy multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) approach. Over the past few years, the determination of suitable cost-effectiveness criteria in the supply chain has become a key strategic issue. However, the nature of these kinds of decisions is usually complex and unstructured. Many quantitative and qualitative factors must be considered to determine the suitable criteria. As the human decision-making process usually contains fuzziness and vagueness, a hierarchy of MADM model based on fuzzy-sets theory is used in this research. Using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), the weights of criteria and subcriteria are determined and then the final ranking is determined by technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Finally, fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) is employed to compare the results with classic TOPSIS. This paper concludes that the subcriteria in all the items are in the same rank

Motion Challenge of Thoracic Tumors at Radiotherapy by Introducing an Available Compensation Strategy

In this chapter a description is explained about radiotherapy as common available method in treatment of thoracic tumors located at thorax region of patient body and move mainly due to respiration. In radiotherapy of dynamic tumors, the correct and accurate information of tumor position during the therapeutic irradiation determine the degree of treatment success. In this chapter we investigate quantitatively the effect of tumor motion on treatment quality by considering to possible drawbacks and errors at external surrogate’s radiotherapy as clinical treatment modality. For this aim, tumor motion information of a group of real patients treated with Cybeknife Synchrony system (from Georgetown University Hospital) was taken into account. A fuzzy logic based correlation model was employed for tumor motion tracking. Final results represent graphically the amount of tumor motion estimated by our utilized correlation model on three dimensions with targeting error calculation. It’s worth mentioning that each strategy that can improve targeting accuracy of dynamic tumors may strongly enhance treatment quality by saving healthy tissues against additional high dose. In this chapter we just tried to introduce readers with thoracic tumor motion error as challenging issue in radiotherapy and motion compensation solutions, implemented clinically up to now

Evaluation of flood hazards areas with fuzzy approach, Case study: Downstream of Neka catchment, Mazandaran province

Floods are among the hazards that affect millions of people around the world every year. The northern region of Iran has also faced numerous floods in recent decades and has caused a lot of damage to urban and rural areas. The northern regions of Iran have also experienced numerous floods in recent decades and have caused extensive damage to urban and rural areas. This study aimed to prepare a map of flood-prone areas by fuzzy method and to validate various maps downstream of the Neka River catchment in eastern Mazandaran. After the flood of 2019, the location of the areas that were affected by the flood was recorded in points. Data were randomly divided into two parts: training and validation 70% and 30%. Based on 70% of the observational data, fuzzy relationships of different information layers were determined, including elevation, slope, distance from the river, precipitation, lithology, and land use. After fuzzification of layers, using 9 different fuzzy operators, the layers overlapped and flood hazard maps were obtained. The validity of the resulting maps was performed using 30% of flooded points and the same number of non-flooded points by ROC method and Cohen's Kappa index. The results showed that operators of fuzzy Gamma 0.9, 0.8, and 0.7, had the highest accuracy of respectively. According to the map of the fuzzy Gamma 0.9, 15.7% of the area is in the very high and high class and 30% of rural and urban areas of the catchment are in these danger zones

Cerebrospinal Fluid and Photobiomodulation Effects on Neural Gene Expression in Dental Pulp Stem Cells

Introduction: Dental pulp cells, a unique source of ectomesenchymal pluripotent stem cells, are originated from the skull neural crest. They are considered as one ideal source of cells for the regenerative medicine applications. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a transparent fluid found in the brain and spinal cord, is enriched with electrolytes, proteins, and growth factors such as EGF, bFGF, BDNF, GDNF, and neuropeptides and can be utilized as a trigger in order to induce the neural differentiation. On the other hand, photobiomodulation (PBM), with the ability to prevent cell apoptosis, can induce cell proliferation by means of increasing the ATP synthesis in mitochondria and facilitating the secretion of the growth factors. In this research, we first aimed to isolate and culture the dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) and subsequently to investigate their potential for neural differentiation.Methods: Human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) were isolated from the pulp tissues using an outgrowth method and subsequently cultured. In order to access the cells’ differentiation potential, cells were firstly classified into four groups which were treated with CSF, gallium aluminum arsenide diode laser irradiation (808 nm; 30 mW power output) and a combination of both, while the fourth group was considered as the control. MTT assay was then used to examine the viability of cells following the treatments. After 4, 7, and 14 days the cell morphology in the treated groups was evaluated while RT-PCR was used in order to evaluate the Nestin and β-tubulinIII neural gene marker expressions.Results: It was shown that PBM has the ability to elevate the proliferation of DPSCs. Also, the differentiated morphology was obvious in the CSF treated group, especially on day 14 with the formation of three-dimensional (3D) structures. The results of gene expression analysis showed that on the fourth day of post-treatment, Nestin, and β-tubulinIII gene expressions were reduced in all groups while a rising trend in their expression was observed subsequently on days 7 and 14.Conclusion: In accordance with previous studies, including functional and protein base researches, it has been demonstrated that CSF has a direct role in neural induction. Although past works have been significant, none of them shows a 3D structure. In this article, we investigated the dual effect of PBM and CSF. Initial results confirmed the upregulation of neural-related transcription factors. The 3D organization of the formed tissue could imply the initiation of organogenesis which has not been reported before. In sum, the dual effect of CSF and PBM has been shown to have the potential for contributing to the initiation of neurogenesis and organogenesi

Optimization of Nonlinear Parameters of Muskingum NL5 model With SHO algorithm

The Muskingum method was first developed by U.S. Army engineers to study flood control in the Muskingum River Basin in Ohio. To evaluate the performance of the SHO algorithm, the results of its implementation have been compared with other basic algorithms such as GA and ICA. The coding of SHO, GA and ICA algorithms was done in the MATLAB (R2018b) software programming section. The results showed that the statistical parameters obtained for the river studied by SHO algorithm in two nonlinear models of Muskingum indicate the proper performance of these algorithms in estimating the optimal values ​​of nonlinear masking modeling parameters in flood detection compared to other algorithms

An Investigation into the Relationship between Knowledge Management Infrastructures and Organizational Intelligence in Research Centers of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology

This study investigates the relationship between knowledge management infrastructures and organizational intelligence in two research centers of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, namely Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology and Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies. The research is a survey in descriptive manner. Using two validated questionnaires related to knowledge management infrastructures and organizational intelligence, the research was conducted among 175 faculty members and staff of the two research centers. Collected data were then analyzed by SPSS and PLS software. Factor analysis showed a high factor loading related to the two main variables and all of the items indicated goodness of fit of the questions. Variance mean ratio between two variables was higher than 0.5 indicating a high convergent validity. R squares for organizational intelligence showed fitness of structural equating model. Goodness of fit for Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology was 0.642 lower than Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies with 0.645. Path analysis indicated a significant relationship between two variables by 95% degree of confidence accepting the two research hypothesis. By comparison, knowledge management infrastructures was more correlated with organizational intelligence in Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies than Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology. Knowledge management infrastructures in Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology predicted organizational intelligence by 0.826 percent while in the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies by 0.848 percent

An Investigation into the Relationship between Knowledge Management Infrastructures and Organizational Intelligence in Research Centers of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology

This study investigates the relationship between knowledge management infrastructures and organizational intelligence in two research centers of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, namely Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology and Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies. The research is a survey in descriptive manner. Using two validated questionnaires related to knowledge management infrastructures and organizational intelligence, the research was conducted among 175 faculty members and staff of the two research centers. Collected data were then analyzed by SPSS and PLS software. Factor analysis showed a high factor loading related to the two main variables and all of the items indicated goodness of fit of the questions. Variance mean ratio between two variables was higher than 0.5 indicating a high convergent validity. R squares for organizational intelligence showed fitness of structural equating model. Goodness of fit for Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology was 0.642 lower than Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies with 0.645. Path analysis indicated a significant relationship between two variables by 95% degree of confidence accepting the two research hypothesis. By comparison, knowledge management infrastructures was more correlated with organizational intelligence in Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies than Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology. Knowledge management infrastructures in Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology predicted organizational intelligence by 0.826 percent while in the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies by 0.848 percent

Evaluation of cost-effectiveness criteria in supply chain management : case study

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and prioritize the proposed cost-effectiveness criteria in supply chain management using fuzzy multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) approach. Over the past few years, the determination of suitable cost-effectiveness criteria in the supply chain has become a key strategic issue. However, the nature of these kinds of decisions is usually complex and unstructured. Many quantitative and qualitative factors must be considered to determine the suitable criteria. As the human decision-making process usually contains fuzziness and vagueness, a hierarchy of MADM model based on fuzzy-sets theory is used in this research. Using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), the weights of criteria and subcriteria are determined and then the final ranking is determined by technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Finally, fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) is employed to compare the results with classic TOPSIS. This paper concludes that the subcriteria in all the items are in the same rank

Is Childhood Obesity Associated with Iron Deficiency Anemia?

Background: The prevalence of obesity is increasing and many countries are struggling with its high rate and serious complications. As a result of distinct diet in obese children, they may be susceptible to nutritional deficiencies in particular, iron deficiency. This study aimed to examine the relationship between obesity and iron indices. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 206 elementary school students were selected by stratified random sampling. Anthropometric parameters (waist circumference and body mass index) were measured and fasting venous blood was collected to test serum iron, ferritin, transferrin saturation and complete blood count. To recognize the association between obesity and anemia, data were entered to SPSS and Lisrel software and analyzed using appropriate related test. Results: It was revealed that waist circumference was negatively associated with levels of serum iron and transferrin saturation (p<0.05). In contrast, the highest waist circumference was positively and significantly related to higher levels of TIBC (p<0.05) compared to normal-weight children. Generally, it was concluded that waist circumference was significantly related to total iron binding capacity and serum iron levels (p<0.05). Similar negative significant associations were observed among children with an increase in body mass index and transferring saturation. Central and general obese children were more likely to have iron deficiency with and without anemia. Conclusion: This study suggests that the higher levels of total and central obesity should be taken into account when assessing the children’s body iron status and should be treated before providing dietary recommendations to correct anemia