Sustainability-oriented application of value stream mapping: a review and classification

Notwithstanding the research on refining lean tools for the sake of sustainable development is slowly progressing, sustainability-oriented application of value stream mapping has received undivided attention from practitioners and researchers. Going through the literature highlights that there is a lack of research in integrating and systematizing the available knowledge on this lean tool, which is regarded as a visual process-based method to make sustainable progress over the time-based and green concepts of wastes to also assess and improve the societal sustainability performance of organizations. Hence, this paper has been aimed at presenting the findings of a systematic literature review on value stream mapping from the triple bottom line point of view. It classifies and codes the main studies in the context as well as provides a research agenda with nine recommendations that may advance this under-studied field. To narrow the gap in the current literature, this article also proposes a sustainability indicator set that would considerably contribute to guiding and strengthening the state-of-the-art research on successful implementation of the application. Besides, the findings indicate that more investigations are needed on employing survey and conceptual methodologies, applying comparative and cross-industry perspectives, developing sustainability indicator sets particularly societal metrics, and considering the stakeholders' benefits from adopting sustainability-oriented value stream mapping. The research on the convergence of this sustainability-oriented application and new paradigms such as IR 4.0 and/or Circular Economy should be also strengthened

Freshwater snails as the intermediate host of trematodes in Iran: a systematic review

Freshwater snails, as the first intermediate hosts of trematodes, can cause health hazards in animals and humans. Recently, the World Health Organization has included Iran in a list of 6 countries known to have serious problems with fascioliasis. In addition, cercarial dermatitis is a job-related disease that is seen often in paddy workers, agricultural labourers, and fishermen in Iran, particularly in Mazandaran Province. Many studies have been conducted in Iran to survey larval trematodes in freshwater snails. However, to the best of our knowledge, no comprehensive data exist regarding infections in gastropods. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to estimate the types and prevalence of cercarial infections in snails in Iran. Electronic English-language and Persian-language databases were searched to identify 24 published articles reporting the prevalence of trematode infections in snails (9 species from 6 families) in various provinces of Iran. In total, 4.4% of gastropods were infected with the larval stages of trematodes. According to the studies reviewed in this meta-analysis‚ the highest infection prevalence was found in Radix auricularia (9.9%). Twelve larval species of trematodes were identified, and the highest prevalence of cercariae was found for Echinostomatidae cercariae (4.3%). Among the provinces explored, West Azerbaijan had the highest prevalence of infected snails (16.9%). The presence of trematodes in snails could pose a serious health problem in Iran. Thus, further studies are necessary to characterize these infections in other provinces

Biotransformation of Monoterpenoids by Suspension Cultures of Lavandula angustifolia

Abstract Callus and suspension cultures of Lavandula angustifolia Mill. (Lamiaceae) were established and the effect of different culture media on growth rate was investigated. Terpenoids added to suspension culture to investigate their biotransformation. All samples were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and GC-mass spectroscopy (MS). Octan-1-ol, citronellol, linalool, borneol and geraniol were biotransformed products of octanal, citronellal, linalyl acetate, bornyl acetate and geranyl acetate, respectively. Citronellol, linalool, borneol, and menthol didn't change by L. angustifolia suspension cultures. Blue pigment production by cultures of L. angustifolia was also studied. Ester hydrolysis and oxidation were the main reactions which occurred in biotransformation process, which may be attributed to the presence of related or bifunctional enzymes. This technique is a possible way of the production of expensive or rare compounds from cheap and plentiful substrates

Development of a high density 600K SNP genotyping array for chicken

Background: High density (HD) SNP genotyping arrays are an important tool for genetic analyses of animals and plants. Although the chicken is one of the most important farm animals, no HD array is yet available for high resolution genetic analysis of this species.Results: We report here the development of a 600 K Affymetrix® Axiom® HD genotyping array designed using SNPs segregating in a wide variety of chicken populations. In order to generate a large catalogue of segregating SNPs, we re-sequenced 243 chickens from 24 chicken lines derived from diverse sources (experimental, commercial broiler and layer lines) by pooling 10-15 samples within each line. About 139 million (M) putative SNPs were detected by mapping sequence reads to the new reference genome (Gallus_gallus_4.0) of which ~78 M appeared to be segregating in different lines. Using criteria such as high SNP-quality score, acceptable design scores predicting high conversion performance in the final array and uniformity of distribution across the genome, we selected ~1.8 M SNPs for validation through genotyping on an independent set of samples (n = 282). About 64% of the SNPs were polymorphic with high call rates (>98%), good cluster separation and stable Mendelian inheritance. Polymorphic SNPs were further analysed for their population characteristics and genomic effects. SNPs with extreme breach of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P < 0.00001) were excluded from the panel. The final array, designed on the basis of these analyses, consists of 580,954 SNPs and includes 21,534 coding variants. SNPs were selected to achieve an essentially uniform distribution based on genetic map distance for both broiler and layer lines. Due to a lower extent of LD in broilers compared to layers, as reported in previous studies, the ratio of broiler and layer SNPs in the array was kept as 3:2. The final panel was shown to genotype a wide range of samples including broilers and layers with over 100 K to 450 K informative SNPs per line. A principal component analysis was used to demonstrate the ability of the array to detect the expected population structure which is an important pre-investigation step for many genome-wide analyses.Conclusions: This Affymetrix® Axiom® array is the first SNP genotyping array for chicken that has been made commercially available to the public as a product. This array is expected to find widespread usage both in research and commercial application such as in genomic selection, genome-wide association studies, selection signature analyses, fine mapping of QTLs and detection of copy number variants

Analyzing the Lived Experiences of Chastity Teachers: Promoters and Inhibitors

This research has been done with the aim of analyzing the lived experiences of chastity trainers, so that it is possible to analyze the opportunities and challenges of this important profession. The community of the present research is considered to include chastity educators related to elementary and secondary schools in Mashhad, and 17 of them were selected purposefully from the "maximum diversity" type and according to the data saturation criterion and repetition of information, semi-structured interviews were conducted with them. After conducting the interviews, exploring the experiences of chastity trainers and analyzing the information, the findings of the research were placed in the form of 103 concepts and 21 categories, and finally, the compiled categories are under the six themes of individual promotion, interactive promotion, knowledge and skill promoter, knowledge and skill hindrance, interactive hindrance, and structural and cultural hindrance were placed. The analysis of the findings indicates that what drives coaching is the interaction and interaction of the sum of the promoting factors, and the sum of the inhibiting factors is also the cause of inhibition and ineffectiveness of the task of the coach.&nbsp; From this point of view, the result of the group of promoting factors, together with the group of inhibiting factors, along with other factors, determines the success or failure of the society, in chastity and desirable sexual education, and as a result, the emergence of healthy or destructive sexual behaviors will be in the next generation

Soil alkalinization and salinization in the Djajerud basin, Iran

International audienc

Gamma Knife Simulation Using the MCNP4C Code and the Zubal Phantom and Comparison with Experimental Data

Introduction: Gamma Knife is an instrument specially designed for treating brain disorders. In Gamma Knife, there are 201 narrow beams of cobalt-60 sources that intersect at an isocenter point to treat brain tumors. The tumor is placed at the isocenter and is treated by the emitted gamma rays. Therefore, there is a high dose at this point and a low dose is delivered to the normal tissue surrounding the tumor. Material and Method: In the current work, the MCNP simulation code was used to simulate the Gamma Knife. The calculated values were compared to the experimental ones and previous works. Dose distribution was compared for different collimators in a water phantom and the Zubal brain-equivalent phantom. The dose profiles were obtained along the x, y and z axes. Result: The evaluation of the developed code was performed using experimental data and we found a good agreement between our simulation and experimental data. Discussion: Our results showed that the skull bone has a high contribution to both scatter and absorbed dose. In other words, inserting the exact material of brain and other organs of the head in digital phantom improves the quality of treatment planning. This work is regarding the measurement of absorbed dose and improving the treatment planning procedure in Gamma-Knife radiosurgery in the brain

Chimie des eaux et alimentation du bassin versant du Djajerud (Iran)

National audienc